One Year
by N16
Summary: Remus Lupin knows that it's only a matter of time before his secret is found out and he's thrown out of Hogwarts.  His only goal is to make it one year.  One year of classes, friendships, and normality.
1. The Beginning of a Story

_Author's Note: I'm new to the world of fanfic, so I'm still learning the ropes, and am in need of a beta. Not knowing the ropes, I have no idea how to _get_ a beta. Help in this area would be appreciated. In other news, this was meant to be short, and just kind of ran away from me. Reviews make me happy._

The other kids were all huddled together, and Remus Lupin wasn't sure what to do. He wanted to huddle closer with them, felt tempted to take a few steps toward the bunch, but years of habit made him stand a few feet away, alone. They looked just as nervous as he felt. He recognized some of them from the train. He had seen that round-faced girl giggling with a group of her friends in one compartment. He had seen that redhead crying right after the train left Platform 9¾, and he had thought about going in and sitting with her, but he didn't have the nerve. She was now hovering near a pale boy, holding onto his arm.

He had seen the two boys in front of him on the train too. Both with black hair, laughing and teasing each other. Remus had walked past their compartment during the beginning of the journey. When he walked past again later, the compartment was full of people, talking, laughing, looking at them admiringly. Remus had barely noticed them, because he learned long ago that people like that barely noticed him. He had spent most of the train ride in a compartment near the back, trying to be invisible, and succeeding.

He looked from one person to the next. His _classmates_. He was here, at school, where he never in a million years dreamed he would be. The redheaded girl caught him looking, and gave him a shy and excited smile. Startled at being noticed, he looked away quickly and stared at his shoes.

"Hey," one of the black-haired boys in front of him whispered to the other, apparently unaware of Remus's presence.

"Yeah?" the other one whispered back.

The first boy hesitated, then asked, "James, will you still be my friend if I get sorted into Slytherin?"

Remus didn't hear James's answer, because at that moment the door opened and a rather severe-looking witch came out and bade them follow her.

Something akin to panic fluttered in Remus's chest as he looked out at all the students in the Great Hall. There were so many of them, and he couldn't help thinking, _So many who could notice, so many I could hurt, so many parents who could demand my expulsion._ He shuddered. The witch had placed an old hat on a stool, and it was now singing a song about brains and ambition and bravery and loyalty, but Remus found he didn't care. He was at Hogwarts, that had been the hard part. Where he went now didn't seem to matter much. The song ended, and one by one, his classmates went forward and tried on the hat.

"Lupin, Remus," the witch called. Remus didn't make eye contact with any of the other first years as he made his way to the stool, and the hat dropped onto his head.

"Ah, a bright mind!" the hat said into his ear. "And a real thirst to learn. Oh, but there's more here, isn't there? A need to prove you aren't a monster, a need to do good. You've felt pain, and pain no longer scares you, but you're very afraid, aren't you, Lupin? Afraid of what you'll find here?" _I don't want to be afraid, I don't want to be afraid_, Remus thought to himself. _But the hat knows I'm afraid,_ and Remus felt ashamed. "Your greatest fear is fear itself," the hat chuckled. "Very wise for such a young boy. Yes, I think I know just the place for you. You belong in GRYFFINDOR!"

Remus jumped as the last word was yelled to the entire hall. Gryffindor? The hat had just told him that it knew he was afraid. Why on earth did it place him in the house for the brave? But the witch had taken the hat from his head, and one of the tables was cheering loudly, and Remus had no choice but to join them. The redheaded girl was among them, and Remus noticed one of the dark headed boys was there as well; apparently he had not ended up in Slytherin as he had feared.

The boy scooted over as Remus approached, making room for him on the bench, and clapped him on the back. Across the table from him, a boy with a prefect badge smiled at him and reached out his hand.

"Well, done... Remus, was it?" Remus nodded, shaking the boy's hand. As he reached out, the sleeve of his robe slid up, and a particularly brutal looking scar was revealed on his forearm. "Frank Longbottom. Welcome to Gryffindor." If Frank Longbottom noticed the scar, he didn't show it. Nevertheless, Remus whipped his arms back inside his robes, and tried to keep his head down for the rest of dinner, allowing his shaggy hair to cover the scars on his face.

---------

"I'm in Gryffindor! I'm in Gryffindor, James!" Whoops and cries of celebration filled the air as the door to the dormitory burst open. The black haired boy ran in, leapt onto his bed, and began jumping up and down excitedly. "Oh, my mum is going to _kill_ me!" he crowed delightedly.

Remus was kneeling on the floor in front of his trunk, pulling out his pajamas and the textbooks he would need for the next day, _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_ and _The Standard Book of Spells Grade 1_. Behind him, he heard the boy called James run in too, slamming the door behind him.

"Told you, Sirius!" He leapt onto his own bed, his glasses bouncing on the bridge of his nose as he jumped. "Told you you wouldn't be in stinking Slytherin!" He jumped onto Sirius's bed, and the two boys began punching each other playfully and laughing until Sirius knocked James off and onto the floor.

"What about you?" James asked, flopping down face first on Remus's bed so he could stare at him over the foot of it. "Aren't you excited? Gryffindor's the best house! My entire family told me so!"

"Yeah, show some excitement!" Sirius jumped down too and messed up Remus's hair and punched him on the arm.

Remus stared at them, completely nonplussed. He automatically reached up and rubbed his arm, which throbbed slightly from the punch.

"What's wrong, mate?" James asked, calming down slightly. "You all right?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm f-fine," Remus stammered.

"Then celebrate!" Sirius grabbed Remus's hand and dragged him up onto Sirius's bed, nearly pulling his arm out of his socket. "Look around! No mum! No dad! We can do whatever we want, right?" Remus nodded uncertainly. "Doesn't say much, does he?" Sirius said to James, and Remus blushed.

Just then, the door to the dormitory opened again, and a rather round blond boy entered uncertainly. He looked around at James, lying on Remus's bed, and Remus and Sirius standing on Sirius's bed. He looked uncertain of where to go, but James was unfazed.

"Hey, mate! This is your bed over here," he said, pointing at the one next to Remus's. "This must be all of us, there's only four beds. I'm James Potter, and that's Sirius Black," he said, pointing. And that's..." he paused and turned to Remus. "What's your name?"

"Remus-" his voice had come out hoarse and croaky, and he cleared his throat and tried again. "Remus Lupin."

"That's Remus Lupin," James said, as if the boy couldn't hear him. "Who're you?"

"Petter Pettigrew," the boy said timidly.

"Well, Peter, Sirius and I were just getting ready to teach Remus the proper way to celebrate," James said, getting up. "Come here." He reached out a hand, and pulled Peter onto Remus's bed. "It's very simple. You stand on this lovely, neatly made bed," he said, with the air of explaining something very complicated.

"And you do THIS!" Sirius yelled, and he began jumping again. "C'mon Remus!"

Timidly at first, Remus began to jump up and down. He hadn't jumped on a bed since he was six years old, and he felt rather stupid, but he didn't want Sirius and James to think he was boring or stuffy. He looked over and caught Peter's eye, and they shared a slightly sheepish, slightly amused smile. If Sirius and James noticed that the other two boys felt at all out of place, they gave no indication of it. Then –

SMACK!

Sirius's blow with the pillow knocked Remus right off the bed. He looked up from the floor, startled, but Sirius just gave him a mischievous grin, and leapt onto the next bed and hid behind James and Peter.

"Oh, no way!" James yelled, pushing him down off the bed, grabbing Remus's pillow, and knocking him in the face with it. After only a moment's hesitation, Remus grabbed a pillow and joined in.

It was crazy. Remus had never been in a pillow fight in his life, never even really spent time with other boys his age, and now these boys were including him, laughing with him, and he was a part of it all. He had just whacked Peter so hard that he crashed into James, knocking him over, when the door opened again.

All four boys froze, pillows in hand, and looked up at Frank Longbottom. He was standing in the doorway, eyebrows raised, and Remus realized how much noise they must have been making. James spoke first.

"Frank! Hi! We're out of pillows, but you can run to your dorm and get one if you want!" James beamed, his smile innocent, but the gleam in his eyes mischievous.

_Oh no_, Remus thought. _I've been at Hogwarts for three hours, and I'm already in trouble. What happens now?_ He wondered. _Detention? Extra homework? Something worse?_

But incredibly, the corners of Frank's mouth were twitching, and he didn't sound the least bit angry as he said, "We have class tomorrow, boys, and you're keeping everyone in Gryffindor up. Go to bed."

"Yes sir," Sirius said immediately, nodding solemnly, and both James and Peter snickered. Frank rolled his eyes and closed the door behind him.

Remus didn't even realize that he had been holding his breath until the other boys busted out laughing. He sat down on the edge of his bed and allowed the panic to drain away from him.

"Oh, I thought we were in for it," Remus muttered, running his hand through his hair.

"Oh, come on, Remus," James said, still laughing. "Lighten up."

"Whoa!" Sirius said, looking at Remus's face. "Where did you get that scar from!"

"What?" Remus asked, panic rising again as he shook his hair back over his face.

"Check it out, James!" Sirius said, reaching over and grabbing Remus's chin, turning his face so James could see the long, jagged scar running down Remus's left cheek.

"Nice!" James said appreciatively. "How'd you get it?"

"An accident," Remus muttered, jerking his face away. "When I was little." He grabbed his pajamas from where he had left them on top of his trunk. "Frank's right, we should go to bed." He said. "I don't want to be late the first day of classes."

"You going to be our mum, Remus?" James asked. The words stung, but when Remus looked up, James was grinning at him. James reached over and ruffled Remus's hair before heading to his own bed. Remus shook his head, not sure what to make of it. It was almost like James and Sirius liked him. He looked over at Peter. Peter smiled at him, but it was a smile that reflected Remus's own thoughts, a smile of bafflement and happiness.

Remus pulled the curtains shut around his bed. His covers were everywhere, kicked every which way from the earlier celebrations. He straightened them out the best he could, and climbed beneath them.

He couldn't help smiling a little bit in the dark. _That was fun_, he thought, and he tried to remember if he had ever had fun like that before. Nothing came to mind.


	2. One Down

Despite Remus's attempts, the boys were late to half of their classes that week. Or perhaps more accurately, _because_ of Remus's attempts, the boys were late to _only _half of their classes that week. The part that Remus couldn't seem to get used to was the way all three of them waited until he had gathered up all his books and notes before they left class, the way they all waited until Peter was done eating before they left the Great Hall at meal times. Occasionally Peter and Remus still exchanged that grin, a grin that said, _Can you believe our luck?_

Within two weeks of school beginning, James and Sirius seemed to know everybody, and as a result, everybody seemed to know Remus and Peter. People smiled and waved at all four of them in the hallway, and talked to them in the Great Hall, and sat at the same tables as them in classes. Peter loved it, chatting happily with all these people that were willing to be his friend. Remus had a harder time getting used to it. His interactions before Hogwarts had been limited almost exclusively to his family, and he really wasn't even sure how to carry on a conversation.

In the privacy of their dorm, the other three boys teased him about it, about how he never raised his hand in class, and how he blushed whenever a girl tried to strike up a conversation with him. But out and about in the school, they never brought it up.

Three weeks. Three weeks of friendship, and then it was time. The boys were eating lunch, Remus already feeling a little bit achy as he always did the day of a full moon. A owl swooped down, dropping a note into Remus's pumpkin juice. James reached for it, but Remus snatched it before James's hand could close on it. James looked surprised. Remus was not generally that assertive.

Remus tried to put the dripping note away inconspicuously, but the other three boys had stopped eating and were waiting for him to open it.

"Come on, Remus! Who's it from?" Peter asked.

"No one," he muttered, shoving it into his bag.

"How do you know? You didn't even open it," Sirius said, reaching out to grab Remus's bag, but again, Remus tugged it away before he had the chance. Resigned, Remus pulled out the note.

_Mr. Lupin,_

_Please report to the infirmary this evening at 6:00._

_Sincerely Yours,_

_Professor Dumbledore_

"It's from my mum," Remus said. "Just regular family news." Once again, he crammed it into his bag, and stood up. "I've got to grab a book from the library before class," he said. "I'll meet you there."

His three friends exchanged skeptical glances, but said nothing as he hurried away.

He stood there in the bathroom for several minutes, his head pressed against the cool stall door. _By tomorrow afternoon_, he told himself, _I'll be back to normal. It'll all be over._

_Until next month. _He shook that particular thought away. He'd just have to deal with this one month at a time. If he was clever, he might make it a whole year. One whole year with friends. One whole year of school. He had known from the beginning that he wouldn't make it until graduation. His parents knew it too, though they never discussed it when they knew he was listening. He heard those conversations when he was supposed to be asleep at night, conversations about whether or not it was a good idea, whether or not Professor Dumbledore really understood his condition, and whether the disappointment would be too great when it finally all came to an end, and Remus had to come home.

_One year_, Remus thought determinedly. _I just want to make it one year._

When Remus got to Charms, Sirius and Peter were sitting in the back, scowling.

"Where's James?" he asked, sliding in next to them, trying to sound normal and casual.

"Talking to McGonagall," Peter said. Sirius shot him a "shut up" look that Remus caught, and Peter missed.

"Why?" Remus asked.

"Making arrangements for his detention," Peter said. Neither he nor Sirius would look directly at Remus, and now Sirius was kicking Peter under the table.

"Why? What happened?" Remus asked. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing," said Sirius sharply. "Quiet, class is about to start."

In the three weeks of school so far, Remus had always been the one to shush the others at the start of class, and he knew that Sirius wasn't nearly as interested in paying attention to the lecture as he was in escaping the conversation.

What were his friends hiding from him? He wondered that evening. He had told them he had a stomachache at dinner, and slipped off early. When James had finally shown up for class, he had looked even angrier than Sirius and Peter, and had been just as unwilling to talk about it. Remus wondered if he had somehow made his friends angry at him. He sighed. Maybe it wouldn't matter about being a werewolf. Maybe his friends were already sick of him, before they had even found out.

"Lupin?" Madame Pomfrey asked when Remus walked in, and he nodded. "Sit right in here," she said, leading him to a chair behind one of the curtains. "I've just got to take care of one little thing, and then we'll head out." As she walked away, Remus heard two sets of footsteps enter the infirmary.

"A Slytherin hit her with bubotuber pus," a girl's voice said angrily. "It's because she's the best Chaser on the team."

Madame Pomfrey sighed. "Every year," Remus heard her mutter. "Every year, just before every Quidditch game. Sit down, sit down, let me go get the potion."

"Stupid Avery," Remus heard a second girl mutter angrily. "At least it's just on my leg. The idiot tried to get me last year too." He thought recognized her voice from the Gryffindor common room.

"Is that why Potter punched him?" the first girl asked curiously. "Because he was trying to jinx the Gryffindor Quidditch team?"

"That?" the girl giggled a little bit. "No, that had nothing to do with Quidditch. You know Lupin, that boy who runs around with Potter and Black?"

Remus's stomach turned uncomfortably. _That boy who runs around with Potter and Black... _was that all he was?

"Well, Avery was joking with the other Slytherins, making cracks about how he's all shy because he's too stupid to talk, and he's got all those scars because he's a freak. Well, Potter overheard, and he beat the crap out of him."

The second girl busted out laughing. "But Avery is twice his size!"

"I know," the girl giggled, "but Potter was _mad_."

Remus stopped paying attention as Madame Pomfrey came back over to the girls. He had forgotten that they had called him "that boy who runs around with Potter and Black," and he didn't care that Avery had been making fun of him. James had beat the guy up. He had beat the guy up for making fun of Remus. _And that was why Peter and Sirius had been angry too!_ He smiled as the pieces came together. Not only were his friends not angry with him, but they had stood up for him. Even though it was only an hour until the full moon, he couldn't help feeling a little bit happy.

---------

"Oi!" Sirius yelled, pulling back the curtains on Remus's bed and bouncing down onto it. "Where _were_ you?"

"What?" Remus mumbled, shielding his eyes from the bright afternoon sunlight.

"You disappeared after dinner last night, and you never showed up again!" James said indignantly, walking up behind Sirius.

"Right," Remus said, closing his eyes again. "I was sick. Still am sick, come to that. Go away."

"You should have told us," James said, sounding less like an eleven year old boy and more like Remus's grandmother.

"Yeah, we were worried about you!" Peter said from James's side.

"I was in the hospital wing. Because I was _sick_. Now _go away_." He didn't want them to see him like this. He had bruises on the side of his face, and an impressively thick and deep gash along his upper arm. Madame Pomfrey had been able to mend them somewhat, but even she couldn't completely heal werewolf wounds. He tried to stay in the shadows of the curtains so his friends couldn't see.

"Cranky bugger when he's sick," Sirius muttered as he closed the curtains again.

"Get better," Peter called through the curtains. "It's Saturday! What's the fun in being sick on a Saturday?" Remus heard the boys laughing as they left the room.

---------

_One month down_, Remus thought the next day, _nine months to go_.

His "illness" hadn't raised any suspicions among his friends, who merely commented cheerfully that he looked "absolutely awful" when he finally joined them for lunch on Sunday. Nothing else was said about it. They also did not mention the incident where James beat up a third year, and when James left to do detention the next week, Remus didn't ask any questions. Part of him wanted to thank James, but another part of him was too embarrassed to bring it up.

"Ugh," James said when he got back, plopping down at the same table where the three of them were doing their Potions essays. "McGonagall made me alphabetize Filch's detention files." He smirked. "Not too smart of her, actually. I got some brilliant ideas."

"I don't suppose the fact that those people got _detention_ indicates to you that it would be unwise to copy them?" Remus asked, proofreading his completed essay.

"Of course I realize it would be unwise to copy them!" James said indignantly. "I plan on learning from their mistakes." He grinned wickedly. "I plan on not getting caught."

"Hopefully your evil schemes can wait another day, James," Sirius said grumpily as he flipped through his Potions book. James's smile fell.

"I totally forgot. Slughorn's essay is due tomorrow, isn't it?" He groaned, thunking his head on the table. "It's almost eleven, and I haven't even done my Charms homework yet!"

"Do your Charms homework," Remus told him quietly.

"Nah," James said, reaching for his bag. "The essay for Slughorn is more important."

"I've got it. Do your Charms homework," Remus repeated. James started at him. Remus never broke the rules, at least not willingly. James and Sirius had dragged him into trouble a couple of times, but Remus had always been a rather reluctant participant.

"You're going to do my homework for me?" James clarified bemusedly.

Remus glanced at him, only briefly, then pulled out more parchment and started work on a second Potions essay. He felt, rather than saw, comprehension dawn on James. Comprehension that Remus knew what he had done, and was grateful.

"Remus!" a sharp voice said from behind them. Lily Evans, the redhead Remus had seen on the train, was frowning at him. Apparently she had overheard what was going on. "That's cheating!"

"Go away, Evans," said James, pulling out his Charms textbook.

"Shut up, Potter, I wasn't talking to you. Remus-"

"Go away, Evans." He said it more gently than James had, but coming from Remus, who rarely said anything at all, the words were harsh, and Lily looked taken aback.

"Fine," she huffily, and stormed away.

Remus finished up the essay the same time James finished up his Charms homework. He rolled the essay up, handed it to James, and they walked silently up to the dorm room together. The essay and Avery were never mentioned again.


	3. House of Black

"I think the Nimbus is better than the Cleansweep," James said authoritatively. "Cleansweeps are sometimes better at first, but they don't hold up as well. After a few months, they'll start to veer to one side or the other, and sometimes the breaking charms-"

"No one cares, James," Sirius interrupted, pouring sugar into his coffee. James's jaw dropped. He had done nothing but talk about broomsticks since he found out that they were having their first flying lesson that day. "Sorry," Sirius said quickly. "No one cares but _you_."

Remus choked a bit on a piece of toast as he snickered, but tried to cover it up. James gave him a dirty look.

"I'm excited too," Remus said truthfully. "I just don't really have any idea what you're talking about. I've never ridden a broomstick before."

James's mouth dropped open again, allowing a bite of toast to fall out of it. "_What?_ You've _never_ been on a broom!" He looked appalled.

"Well, no," Remus said. He'd entertained himself with books, and other quiet, indoor activities. He and his parents had tried to keep his life as simple, and as safe, as they possibly could. That meant no broomsticks. The thought of riding a broom had never even occurred to him until he found out they would have flying lessons.

"Oh, just wait!" James cried. "You're going to love it! It's the greatest thing in the world! I mean, you're flying through the air-"

"I think he knows that," Peter muttered, and Sirius laughed. James glared at all of them.

"Just you wait," he said grumpily. "I'll be the star of the Quidditch team next year. You'll see."

His predictions were cut short by the delivery of the mail. A bright red envelope landed in front of Sirius, and James, Remus and Peter all stared at it in horror. A look of fear and embarrassment crossed Sirius's face so quickly that Remus thought he might have imagined it. Then it was replaced by a proud, haughty look, and Sirius laughed.

"Well, it was only just a matter of time," he said. "Frankly, I'm stunned that I made it – what, five weeks? – into school before she found out. I'm amazing." He sighed and shook his head. "Well, here goes." He leaned back, slit open the Howler, and tossed it onto the table.

_"SIRIUS BLACK!"_ the letter screamed. _"I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO ASHAMED!" _Sirius rolled his eyes. _"DID YOU REALLY THINK I WOULDN'T FIND OUT? HOW STUPID DO YOU THINK I AM?" _Sirius laughed out loud at that part. _"SIX GENERATIONS OF BLACKS HAVE BEEN IN SLYTHERIN! SIX GENERATIONS! YOU HAVE BROKEN A PROUD TRADITION! YOUR FATHER IS HEARTBROKEN AT THE THOUGHT OF HIS NOBLE, PUREBLOOD SON LIVING AMONGST THOSE MUDBLOODS AND MUGGLE-LOVERS!" _The entire Great Hall seemed to gasp at the same time. The Slytherins were snickering to each other, and everyone else looked appalled. _"YOU WATCH YOUR STEP, BOY, OR YOU'LL END UP NO BETTER THAN A MUDBLOOD YOURSELF!"_

The Great Hall was silent as the letter burst into a pile of ash. Sirius stared at it for only a moment before seizing its remains, and leaping onto the table. "Did you hear that?" He yelled. "I broke _six generations_ of proud tradition!" He pumped his fist in the air triumphantly. The tension broke in the hall as the Gryffindor table erupted into cheers and laughter, accompanied by several Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. Remus clapped and yelled with the others, grinning and shaking his head in disbelief.

"Get down from the table please, Mr. Black," said a dry voice from behind Remus. He turned to see Professor McGonagall, looking very much like she was trying not to smile. Sirius turned and flashed her his most charming grin. "As pleased as I am to have you in my house, on top of the breakfast table is not the appropriate place to celebrate."

"Of course, Professor," Sirius said, climbing down and sliding back into his seat, looking very pleased with himself.

As they walked to Transfiguration, Remus thought about what Sirius had just done with a touch of awe. Had it been him, he would have run from the Great Hall in humiliation, and even if he _had_ had the nerve to do what Sirius had done, he was pretty sure McGonagall would have given him detention.

Remus thought about it for most of the day, in fact. He thought about how Sirius could handle anything, and how everyone liked Sirius. It wasn't fair, he thought, that one person could be so lucky. Everywhere Sirius went, he was the center of attention.

It was therefore weird, that night, that Sirius was not in the common room. Remus, Peter and James were all sitting around their usual table, Remus studying, and Peter and James playing Wizard's Chess. James was restless and distracted, which meant that Peter was beating him, and getting beaten just made him grumpy.

"What're you reading?" James asked Remus, after losing to Peter for the third time.

"I'm reading about the Goblin Rebellion of 1726-" Remus began, but James cut him off.

"How boring," he said with a snort.

"Where's Sirius?" Remus asked, starting to get irritated with James's behavior. He needed Sirius to play off of, otherwise he got cranky and annoying.

"Dunno," James said, trying to get a black knight to attack a white pawn. Seeing as how no actual chess game was taking place, the pieces were reluctant to fight. "Said he was going to the bathroom ages ago."

Remus went back to his reading while Peter tried to talk James into another game, but James wasn't interested. Everything Remus and Peter did seemed to annoy him, and Remus finally got fed up and announced he was going to bed.

The curtains around Sirius's bed were drawn, but Remus didn't hear the usual snores coming out of it. Besides, Sirius never went to bed this early. He and James had a nightly torment-and-insult-each-other ritual.

"Hey, Sirius?" Remus called as he put his books away. "Sirius, you in here?"

"Yeah, I'm here." His voice sounded tired, more despondent than Remus had ever heard him sound. He went over and pulled the curtains open.

"Hey, what's up?" Sirius was sitting cross-legged on the bed, staring blankly into space. "Sirius? You all right?"

"I'm fine," Sirius said.

"Yeah, you look fine." Remus sat down on the side of bed.

"I'm proud, you know," Sirius said defiantly. Remus cocked his head to the side questioningly. "To be in Gryffindor."

"Yes, I caught that on the first night when you screamed it to everyone in Gryffindor Tower," Remus said, trying to lighten the mood.

"I thought I would go in Slytherin. All the Blacks have been in Slytherin."

"And I caught that when your mum screamed it to the entire Great Hall this morning." And then something clicked in Remus's mind.

"Is she always like that?"

"Yeah," Sirius said. "They all are."

The door to the dormitory opened, and James and Peter both walked in. They caught sight of the serious looks on Remus and Sirius's faces, and James instantly looked worried.

"All right, Sirius?" he said, his irritable mood from downstairs gone.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he muttered, looking embarrassed and not looking at any of them.

"We were just talking," Remus explained, "about how his family, and his mum in particular, is-"

"A prejudiced, narrow-minded bitch?" James supplied helpfully.

"James!" Remus cried, horrified at James's lack of sensitivity, but Sirius laughed.

"Yeah," he said, "I guess that about covers it." He ran his hand over his face, looking exhausted and frustrated and amused all at the same time. "Ah, well, at least she still has little Reg. Regulus," he added, seeing their blank expressions. "My little brother. So far, he's a perfect little Black."

Remus wasn't sure what to say. Sirius wasn't ever supposed to look sad, or hurt, or weak at all. He looked to James for help. James was frowning, apparently thinking hard.

Then he jumped onto the bed and tackled Sirius. Remus quickly jumped up as Sirius kicked James off of him, then jumped on him and put him in a headlock. Remus and Peter watched as the two boys punched and wrestled each other into exhaustion. When they both fell back onto the floor a few minutes later, James was clutching his side and Sirius had a black eye, and between gasps, both were laughing.

"I think you broke a rib," James moaned.

"Crybaby," Sirius gasped back, grinning.

Remus was completely baffled.

Whatever had happened, it seemed to make Sirius feel better. He was cheerful again as the boys all changed into pajamas and said goodnight. As Remus laid in bed and stared at his curtains, he thought about his mum, who had worked so hard to make the arrangements with Professor Dumbledore so that her only son could go to Hogwarts, who made him steaks three times a week, and whose eyes, which were always tinted with fear when she looked at him, were also always full of love. He thought it was weird that a few hours before, he had been so fervently envying Sirius Black.


	4. Secrets and Lies

The weather got cold earlier than usual this year. To his friends, this meant that it was harder to get seats together in the increasingly crowded common room. To Remus, this meant that he was going to be freezing at the next full moon.

He considered telling his friends in advance that he was going to be gone, but he knew they wouldn't stop pestering him with questions until they were satisfied with his story, and he didn't feel like dealing with it. He would just tell them that his grandmother had gotten sick quite suddenly, and he had to go home to see her. He wondered what would happen if he started punching them if they asked too many questions. Somehow, he thought it wouldn't go over as well as it always did when James did it.

"Here are some blankets," Madame Pomfrey said as they approached the Whomping Willow. "I reckon it'll be awfully cold when you wake up tomorrow."

"Thank you." She was looking at him with a mixture of concern and pity, and he looked away. In hospitals, he had generally been looked at with disgust or fear, but he found the pity just as intolerable.

"I'll come for you in the morning," she said as she levitated a stick to poke the knot on the tree.

"Thank you," he said again, and headed for the tunnel.

It wasn't bad, really. No worse than the shed in his parents backyard. He had furniture to bite and scratch, and Dumbledore had done so many enchantments on the building that it was completely impenetrable. He was a danger to no one here.

He stripped off his clothes and left them with the blankets in the tunnel just outside the door. If he took them inside, he would shred them during the night. Shivering violently, he curled up in a corner and waited.

---------

"REMUS!"

This was a problem he had not anticipated. The morning after a full moon, he always felt awful, and he was usually pretty rough the following day as well. The fact that his friends would not let him sleep it off, that they would insist on ripping open the hangings on his bed and waking him up, was something he had never thought about.

But then, he had never thought he would have friends.

"Go _away_," he groaned.

"You disappeared on us again!" James sounded offended.

"I had to go home," Remus muttered, burying his head in his pillow. "And I didn't get to sleep, so I'm tired."

"Why did you have to go home?" Peter demanded.

"My grandmother is sick."

"Sick enough you had to go home?" James sounded sincerely worried, the anger gone from his voice. "She all right?"

"Yeah, she's fine. False alarm." Remus's voice was muffled by the pillow.

"So you went home last night, and you're back already?" Sirius asked. Remus turned his head and opened an eye to see Sirius frowning at him curiously.

"Yes," he grunted, hoping that if his answers were short and evasive enough, maybe they would leave him alone.

"How?" Sirius asked.

"How what?"

"How did you go home and get back so fast?"

"Floo powder. Now please, leave me alone so I can get some sleep before I have to get up and do my homework."

_Two down_, he thought as his friends left the room. _Eight to go._

---------

It was becoming deceptively easy to forget, between full moons, that he wasn't normal. Not ever _really_ forget, of course, but for so many years, he had simply seen himself as a werewolf. He hadn't realized that he could ever be something more than that, something _other_ than that, even.

He was Remus Lupin, a very good student.

He was Remus Lupin, friend of James and Sirius and Peter.

He was Remus Lupin, who got caught charming the Slytherin Quidditch team so that technicolor bubbles came out of their mouths every time they tried to speak.

Those last two might have been related.

The incident with the Slytherins was the reason he was now walking alongside James, Sirius, and Peter, following McGonagall into her office. James was trying not to laugh, Sirius looked totally calm, and Peter kept dissolving into nervous giggles. Remus had lost all feeling in his limbs. He sat down in a chair between James and Peter, staring at his hands, which were clasped tightly in his lap.

"They started it!" Sirius said, before McGonagall said a word. "They were trying to jinx Susan Bagshot! That's the third time they've taken a shot at her!"

"And I suppose it was chivalry that prompted the four of you to come to her defense?" McGonagall said tartly.

"Yes," Sirius said firmly. James barely kept in a guffaw. Remus dared a look at McGonagall's face. He had a feeling she knew that there were other factors involved. Factors like James was absolutely obsessed with Qudditch, and Susan Bagshot was very, very pretty.

"It was all in good fun," James said, obviously trying a different angle. "Just some Halloween humor."

McGongall did not look amused by their Halloween humor. "Detentions. All of you. And fifty points from Gryffindor."

"Professor McGonagall?" A voice spoke from the doorway.

Remus recognized that voice. He had heard it at the start of term feast, and he had heard it at his house the previous year, when arrangements were being made for him to come to Hogwarts. Out of the corner of his eye, Remus saw all three of his friends' heads whip around, but he went back to starting at his lap.

"I was wondering if I could borrow Mr. Lupin for a moment?"

"Certainly, Professor Dumbledore. We're finished here." She turned back to the boys. "You three, back up to Gryffindor tower."

James, Sirius and Peter scurried out of the room, glancing curiously at Remus as they went.

---------

"Nothing? What do you mean, _nothing_?" Sirius demanded.

Remus didn't answer. He was focusing much harder than was necessary on his homework. "He just asked me how school was going, and wanted to know if I liked it. Stuff like that."

Sirius, James and Peter exchange incredulous looks.

"Dumbledore pulled you aside for a private chat so he could ask you if you liked school?" James said.

"Yeah." Remus was trying hard to come up with an excuse, a reason why Dumbledore would want to pull him aside, but he was coming up blank.

"You're a crappy, crappy liar, Remus," Peter said. James nodded solemnly, and Sirius raised his eyebrows and shrugged in agreement.

Remus wasn't lying. Not exactly. Dumbledore had wanted to know how he was adjusting, how classes were, if everything was going all right. Remus had had the sense that Dumbledore had been trying not to laugh when he said that Remus seemed to be getting along as well as any of the first years, even to the point of earning some detentions. He had expected a lecture at that, but Dumbledore had simply stared at him with those twinkling blue eyes, then asked him who he thought would win the upcoming Quidditch game between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.

"You keeping a secret from us, Remus?" Sirius asked suspiciously. Remus's stomach tightened, and he tried not to panic. He looked up to see Sirius staring at him so intently that Remus jumped a bit, knocking his bottle of ink off the table. It smashed on the floor, glass flying everywhere and ink covering the bottom of Remus's robes.

"_Reparo_," Remus muttered irritably, still trying to breathe regular and appear perfectly calm. The bottle flew back together, but jagged cracks ran through it, and when he bent down to pick it up, it broke in his hand again. He hissed as one of the pieces of glass cut open his palm.

"_Reparo_," James said, and the bottle reformed itself properly. Remus felt a surge of annoyance. He had practiced that charm and studied the theory behind it for the last four nights, and he still couldn't get it right. James had been doing it perfectly since the first day they covered it in class.

"You all right?" Peter asked, gesturing to Remus's palm.

"I've had worse," he said truthfully, sucking on the cut.

"Here, Remus," James said, scooting his chair over next to him. "The problem is you're not swishing your wand enough, right? It's more like this." James dropped the ink bottle onto the table, smashing it again. "_Reparo!_"

"Stop showing off," Remus snapped. James looked taken aback.

"What aren't you telling us?" He asked abruptly.

"_Nothing_," Remus insisted. He grabbed his books. "I'm going to bed." He bumped the table as he stood up, knocking the ink bottle off again. He hesitated for just a moment. "_Reparo_." This time he swished his wand like James had said, and the bottle fixed itself perfectly. Remus walked away without looking at his friends.


	5. The Importance of Not Missing Class

_Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews! Still need a beta. Please let me know if you have any tips on how to go about finding one._

Remus had never attended school before, and therefore had never had homework before. To him, homework was a part of being at Hogwarts, and like everything else about Hogwarts, he considered it to be a bit of an honor and a privilege. Knowing that his magical education could be cut short at any moment, he wanted to take advantage of any opportunity to learn and practice.

His friends were completely baffled by this attitude. James and Peter had actually spent a couple of years at muggle school when they were younger, and Sirius had had private tutors for most of his life. They, and everyone else at Hogwarts, considered homework to be a terrible nuisance, interfering with quality social time. As November brought in the first snow storm of the season, it also interfered with Sirius, James and Peter's plans to have snowball fights, to hide behind the greenhouses and hit Slytherins with snowballs, and to sneak up behind girls and stuff snowballs down the backs of their robes.

"What happened to you?" Remus asked one evening as Sirius plopped down beside him at a table in the common room. His head was soaked, and bits of snow and ice clung to his eyebrows and hair. "And move over, you're dripping on my essay."

"I got Susan Bagshot from behind with a snowball."

"And she chased him down and stuffed his face in a snow bank," Peter said as he and James joined them at the table, laughing.

"I think she's had too much experience getting attacked by the Slytherins," James snorted. "She can take care of herself."

"What are you working on?" Sirius asked, trying very hard to look dignified and ignore Peter and James. It was hard to do with his hair sticking out all different directions.

"The essay about levitation charms," Remus said. "Can you hand me that book?"

"Remus!" James cried, looking horrified. "That essay isn't due for four more days!"

"I just want to get it over with," Remus said. "That way I'll have the weekend free." He reached over Sirius and grabbed the book. "You guys should consider starting on yours too."

Peter laughed at the look on James's face. He actually looked confused at the thought. "What? _Now_?"

"Yes, now." Remus rolled his eyes.

"But it's Thursday! That's the day before the weekend! You can't do homework on the day before the weekend!"

Remus tried not to feel too annoyed when James and Sirius both managed to get their essays completed on Sunday night, and what made it worse was that he knew they would get good grades. He had spent Sunday evening helping Peter with his. James and Sirius might be able to get away with leaving their work until the last minute, but Peter, like Remus, had to work a little bit harder.

"Hey," Remus muttered as they headed up the stairs to their dorm Sunday night. "Next time, start a little earlier, all right?"

Peter nodded, his face pink. He wouldn't have been able to finish the essay without Remus's help, and Remus knew he was embarrassed. James and Sirius treated them as equals, and he knew it had been a rude awakening for Peter that night to realize that he could not get away with irresponsibility the way that his friends could.

"Thanks for helping me," he muttered, and Remus nodded.

When they got their papers back the following week, he didn't ask the others how they had done. He had done extremely well, but he was still afraid that they might have gotten better marks than him, and he thought he might have to hit something if they had. Unfortunately, the others did not suffer from any such insecurity.

"So how'd you do?" Sirius asked as they left class.

"Seventeen out of twenty," Peter answered promptly, shooting Remus a grateful look.

"Nineteen out of twenty," James said. "He counted off a point because he said that it was obvious that I was just trying to fill up space at the end."

"Were you?" Sirius asked.

"Of course. And you?"

"Eighteen out of twenty," Sirius said. "How about you, Remus?"

He tried not to look too smug. "Twenty one."

"Out of twenty?" Sirius demanded. "How did you pull that off?"

"He said that I exhibited a knowledge of the theory that was more sophisticated than a first year would normally-"

"You're really smart, blah, blah, blah," James brushed him off. "Good job."

"Yeah, well done," Sirius echoed.

He had to admit, he felt slightly vindicated. Granted, his friends had all received high marks, but he had received the highest. And any annoyance that he'd felt at their lack of effort had faded with their comments. At least they recognized that he had done well, and were able to appreciate his effort.

"We don't have any homework due tomorrow," Sirius said, looking out the window. A heavy snow was falling, obscuring the view of the grounds. " Right, Remus?"

"Right," Remus said slowly, unsure where Sirius was heading with this.

"So what do you say?"

"What do I say to what?"

"Taking the afternoon off! Having some fun!" Sirius grinned, and Remus recognized the evil glint in his eye.

"Uh, Sirius? We might not have homework to do this afternoon, but we do still have Herbology." How on earth could Sirius have forgotten about a class? But then Remus realized from the grin on his friend's face that Sirius hadn't forgotten at all. Remus looked around at the others. James looked uncertain, and Peter seemed to be waiting for James's reaction before deciding what his own would be.

"Absolutely not," Remus said instantly.

"Come on! Why not?" Sirius gestured to the snow outside. "I mean, do you really want to walk to the greenhouses in this?"

"No," said Remus, "but I'm going to." Sirius turned to James for support.

"I don't know," James said finally. "Maybe it's not such a good idea."

Sirius sulked all the way to the greenhouse. Remus thought about trying to talk to him, but there was simply no way to explain. Remus already knew that he was going to have to miss more class than the average student; the next full moon was on a Sunday night. He was determined to make it to his afternoon classes on Monday, but he knew that morning classes were completely out of the question.

Like homework, Remus felt that classes were something special. Sirius didn't get that. As he watched Sirius pouting, he had to resist the urge to fling a lovage root at his head when he wasn't looking.

-------------

His friends had hardly noticed the first time he had gone missing. The second time, their questions had been more skeptical and probing. Remus figured that this time, he had better give them some warning. Since he had used the sick grandmother story before, he thought he might use it again. After all, it was more likely that his grandmother was frequently sick than a different member of his family was sick every month.

He would tell them he had gotten an owl, he decided, and that he had to leave that evening to go home. It was at dinner, when he had planned to tell them, that he realized the problem with the plan. He had been with his friends all day, and they knew that he had not received an owl. He was trying to figure out a way around this when a fourth year bumped into James, accidentally knocking James into his plate of food and spilling his drink. As the fourth year was apologizing and Sirius and Peter were trying to help mop up the drink, it was almost too easy to slip away unnoticed.

As he sat naked and shivering in the shack that night, he knew that he had only made things worse. Not only had he not forewarned them of his absence, but he had disappeared right in the middle of dinner, right under their noses. On top of that, he was going to miss class, something he had absolutely refused to do once since the beginning of school. There was no way he was going to be able to avoid their questions the next day.

----------

Unfortunately, the next day was not an easy one. He slept through the morning, but, just like he had promised himself, he pulled himself out of bed for his afternoon classes. Perhaps because of his anxiety about his friends, he had been more brutal than usual the night before. Madame Pomfrey had done her best when she had fetched him early that morning, but his entire left arm still looked like it had been gnawed upon by a wild beast, and he had a bright bruise the size of an apple on his right temple.

He trudged into Charms with his hair in his face, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. To his surprise, his friends didn't ask him any questions at all. They just looked at him inquisitively as he sat down.

"Grandmother was sick again," he muttered. He didn't look up to see their reactions, but just focused on getting his books out.

As it turned out, he really might not have bothered coming to class at all. He felt like he was in a fog, and he kept forgetting to take notes. Strangely, he saw from the corner of his eye that Sirius _was_ taking notes, something that Sirius generally objected to on principle.

Remus considered not going to Herbology, but he was afraid of demonstrating any more strange behavior. He trudged, rather slower than usual, to the greenhouse. His friends walked with him, their joking and teasing subdued. They were nearly to the greenhouse when Remus stumbled, almost falling face first in the snow, and Peter caught him by the back of his robes.

"You all right?" James asked, and Remus nodded. He was too tired to make up an excuse about tripping over something, or to joke about being clumsy. He just wanted to go to bed. They made the rest of the walk in silence.

Had he been paying attention during class, Remus might have noticed that once again, Sirius was being unusually attentive and studious, as were James and Peter. As it was, all he noticed was that his left arm wasn't capable of repotting anything, and he was afraid that if he kept trying, he might tear open the wounds again. He felt guilty as he stood there in a stupor, watching his friends work, but he couldn't seem to force his body to help them.

"Where are we going?" he mumbled as they walked past the entrance into the Great Hall after class. "Aren't we going to eat dinner?"

"We'll bring you dinner," James said tersely. Remus became vaguely aware that someone was holding onto his arm, holding him up, though he wasn't sure who. He was grateful that they had his right arm, and not his left, which was throbbing.

They marched him, albeit rather slowly, straight up to Gryffindor tower, and into their dormitory.

"Get some rest," Peter said as they helped him onto his bed. He collapsed back, welcoming sleep.

----------

It was several hours later when he awoke. He still felt a little fuzzy, but not nearly as bad as he had. Now that his brain was working a little more clearly, he felt incredibly stupid for forcing himself to go to classes that afternoon. He knew how drained he always was the day after, how exhausted and pained he always was.

_Well actually_, he admitted to himself, _I _didn't_ really know_. The truth was, he had never tried to make himself do more than climb out of bed for lunch and dinner. He now knew that there was no chance of him making it to classes at all during the day following the full moon each month.

"Hey, he's awake," he heard James say. The curtains to his bed were still open, and he was lying stiffly on top of the covers, still fully clothed.

"You all right?" Peter asked as the three of them congregated around his bed. Remus nodded, not looking at them.

"We brought you some dinner." A stack of sandwiches sat on a napkin on the table next to the water pitcher.

"Thank you," he mumbled, sitting up as Peter brought them over.

"And your notes are by your bag," Sirius added, pointing to a stack of parchment.

"My notes?" Remus asked around a mouthful of sandwich, still trying to avoid his friends' eyes without appearing rude.

"Yeah," James said. "Notes. We knew you'd go mental if you missed a whole day of notes in class."

For a moment, he felt an overwhelming wave of guilt. He was lying to his friends, and they were bringing him food and taking notes for him. He had a strange desire to tell them the truth. This was quickly followed by that solid, sickening knowledge that he could do no such thing.

"So does your grandmother beat you?" He jumped slightly as James startled him out of his thoughts.

"What?" he asked, confused. James gestured to the bruise on his face. "What? No," he said. "It's nothing. Look, I'm just going to go to bed, all right?" he said, cramming the rest of his sandwich into his mouth, and turning his back on them as he pulled his pajamas out of his trunk.

"Yeah, sure," James said, and Remus felt rather than saw the expressions they all exchanged behind his back. He wondered if the expressions were angry or confused or hurt, but he felt too tired to worry about it just then. _I'll deal with it tomorrow, after I've slept this off_, he thought to himself as he pulled off his robes.

He realized his mistake an instant before he heard their collective gasp. He threw his pajama top on as quickly as possible, not even caring that it was backwards and inside out, but he hadn't even gotten his right arm into the sleeve before Sirius had closed the gap between them.

"Arm," he said sharply, his voice a few notes higher than usual. "Now."

Even though he knew it was a futile effort, Remus tried shoving his right arm through the sleeve and holding it out.

"Other arm, Remus," Sirius said. He sounded angry.

Resigned, he pushed up his left sleeve. "It's nothing," he said, echoing his previous statement. James and Peter had joined Sirius, gaping at his bloody arm.

"What the hell happened to you?" James exclaimed in horror.

"It was just a stupid accident. I mean, I wasn't feeling well, I think I caught whatever my grandmother had. Anyway, you saw me today, I could barely walk straight. Well, I had a clumsy moment before I left this morning, and I hurt myself. My mum looked at it, and I'll be fine." Remus said it all in a rush, frantically making up the story as he went.

"Your mum looked at it?" Peter echoed.

"Yeah, before I left our house this morning. She's good with this kind of stuff." That much was true. His mother had years of experience dealing with his wounds.

"I thought you were at your grandmother's," Sirius said.

"No, I was at our house. I mean, that's where my grandmother was. Is. Because she's sick."

For the first time all day, Remus actually looked up at his friends. They were glaring at him, and he knew they didn't believe his story for an instant.

"Does it hurt?" Sirius asked finally, looking back down at his arm.

"Nah," Remus said. "I've had worse." He regretted saying it instantly, despite it being true. The suspicious look in each of their eyes had sharpened at the words.

"Look, I'm tired," Remus said, and he couldn't keep the pleading note out of his voice. "And I can't miss another day of classes."

They stared at him for another moment, then James nodded curtly. "Fine. Right. Get some sleep. You look like crap." Strangely, the last sentence was said with the least amount of malice.

If he hadn't been so tired, he would have stayed up all night worrying. As it was, he just had enough energy to register that his friends were all whispering together on the other side of the room, and to realize that they were almost certainly talking about him. Then sleep came again.


	6. Holiday

Remus spent the next couple of weeks avoiding his friends. He knew that they wanted an explanation, but he simply could not come up with a lie that he knew they would find believable. Instead, he kept quiet and spent even more time than usual doing his homework. He found excuses not to walk with them to classes, and though he sat with them in the Great Hall, he didn't speak unless he had to. He made sure to keep his arm covered up and his head down as he waited for his wounds to heal, and hoped that maybe somehow it would all go away, and everything would just go back to normal.

He had become quite comfortable with Peter, James and Sirius, but around others, he still stayed pretty much silent. He was therefore surprised one evening in the library when Lily Evans pulled up a chair across from him and sat down.

"Hello Remus," she said, pulling out her own books.

"Hello Lily," he said politely.

"So what's wrong?" she asked matter-of-factly as she unrolled a piece of parchment.

"Excuse me?" he said, confused. He had been earnestly studying right then, not worrying about his friends (though they were always in the back of his mind). Did he look upset? "There's nothing wrong," he said, perplexed.

"You won't even look at anyone, and you aren't talking with your friends even when you guys are together," Lily said. "And usually you guys are always together, but now you're in the library almost every night. Are you mad at them?"

"No!" Remus said quickly.

"Are they mad at you?" Her parchment and quill sat in front of her untouched as she watched Remus curiously.

"No. Maybe. I'm not sure." He shook his head. "It's nothing," he said, for what felt like the hundredth time that week.

"You don't know if they're mad at you?" She frowned. "Why don't you ask them?"

Remus didn't answer. He shook his head nervously, allowing his hair to fall in his face and cover up the yellow remains of his bruise. He really kind of wished Lily would leave him alone. He had been studying perfectly fine before she showed up. Now she was nodding in an understanding, sympathetic kind of way that he found very annoying, seeing as how he hadn't said anything.

"You're afraid to ask them because then you'll _know_ that they're mad at you," she said wisely. "Then you won't be able to ignore it."

"What do you want, Evans?" he asked tiredly.

She finally opened her textbook and picked up her quill, not looking at him. "You're not like them, Remus. You're nicer. I don't want them to be mean to you."

"They _are_ nice!" he said, surprised and offended. Lily glanced up from her book to stare doubtfully at him for a moment. "No, really, they are," he insisted. "They're not being mean to me."

"You should go ask them if they're mad at you. That way you'll either know that they're not, and you won't have to worry about it anymore, or you'll know that they are, and you guys can fix it," she said. "I mean, if you really do think that they're nice and they're worth it." Then she began writing, and even though Remus sat there for another five minutes, she didn't say another word.

It took Remus a very long time to walk back from the library, because he took several unnecessary detours, and walked very slowly. He thought about just asking his friends if they were mad, like Lily had suggested, but he couldn't think of a way to do it that didn't make him sound really pathetic and stupid. However, Lily's words had made him realize that he had to do _something_ instead of just avoiding them. They were, as she had said, worth it.

He was the first one in the dormitory that night. He sat on his bed reading, leaving the curtains open. He had decided he would just try to act completely normal. Maybe if he pretended nothing had happened, they would do the same. His eyes moved over the pages of the book as he waited, but he wasn't really reading a word. When he finally heard the door open, he had to take a deep breath to get up the courage to look up and, for the first time in two weeks, really meet his friends' eyes.

James glanced over at him, and Remus smiled what he hoped was a natural smile. "Hey," he said as cheerfully as he could.

James looked slightly taken aback. "Hey Remus," he said, looking as uncertain as Remus felt. Then he laughed. "You're sitting up here doing homework on a Friday night? Only you."

"Oh?" said a cool voice from the doorway. "Is he speaking to us again?" Remus's stomach sank as he spotted the glare on Sirius's face.

"Drop it, Sirius," James muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "Just let it go."

"Why?" Sirius demanded.

"Because he's _speaking to us again_," Peter hissed from behind him.

"So what? He ignores us for two weeks, and then all of a sudden everything is just back to normal?" Sirius turned to face Remus, and Remus fought the urge to look away guiltily. He had been so worried that they were mad at him that he hadn't thought about how it must have seemed from their end.

"You just disappear one night in the middle of dinner, show up the next day half dead and looking like you've been attacked by some wild animal, and then you stop speaking to us for no apparent reason!" Sirius was nearly yelling, but Remus thought that he looked more hurt than angry.

"You're right," he said quietly, still forcing himself to look at Sirius. Sirius blinked in surprise, and James and Peter glanced at each other behind his back. "I'm sorry." He didn't know what else to say. He had no explanations or answers for them. Sirius turned away and walked to the window, and Remus finally allowed himself to stare at the floor.

"Why _did_ you stop talking to us?" Peter asked cautiously.

Remus considered his answer carefully. "At first I was upset about other things, and I didn't feel well, and that made me grumpy," he said slowly. "And then I was afraid that you guys were mad at me because I had been grumpy, so I wasn't sure what to do." That answer was close enough to the truth, he figured.

"What were you upset about?" James asked. He and Peter were sitting side by side on Peter's bed, looking at him, but Sirius was still staring out the window with his back to them.

"My grandmother being sick." Remus didn't know what else to say. He hadn't wanted to bring up his absence at all, but there really wasn't any way to pretend that all of this hadn't started with his disappearance.

Sirius turned around from the window and walked right up to the edge of Remus's bed. He looked down at him, his face inscrutable. Remus wasn't sure what he was doing.

"Your grandmother was sick," Sirius said finally, and Remus nodded. "You promise?"

"Wh-what?" Remus asked, caught off guard.

"You promise you aren't lying to us, Remus?" Remus felt small and uncomfortable under the fierceness of Sirius's stare. He could see James and Peter behind him, watching them closely.

"I'm not lying to you," he said quietly, and he was surprised how strong his voice sounded. It didn't shake at all.

Sirius nodded abruptly. "Fine," he said, and he walked away and climbed onto his bed.

"So are we all good?" James asked hesitantly, looking between Remus and Sirius.

"Yeah," Sirius said. "We're good."

----------

Remus thought that he would feel better once he was on speaking terms with his friends again, and he was partially right. It was good to have people to laugh with and talk to again, and it was nice to have something to do in the evenings besides sit in the library. Even so, he felt like an outsider in a way that he had never before felt with James, Sirius and Peter. He had looked Sirius dead in the eye and lied to him, and Sirius had believed him. Pangs of guilt kept hitting him at unexpected times. It was made even worse by the fact that Sirius was trying to be extra nice to him to make up for getting so angry.

His spirits were lifted somewhat as signs of Christmas began to fill the castle. Giant trees stood in the Great Hall, suits of armor sang carols, and tinsel hung in the hallways. Unfortunately, mistletoe also hung in the hallways. The mistletoe was a source of great entertainment for his friends ever since they had caught Lily Evans and Remus looking at each other. It had been a couple of days after their talk in the library. Lily, sitting a little ways down the table from them, had smiled at Remus when she spotted him laughing and talking with his friends. He had smiled back at her, telling her silently that everything was okay again.

His friends had noticed the smile, and had deduced from it that Remus and Lily were clearly in love. He was too glad to have his friends back to tell them off for teasing him, so he simply stared at the floor and felt himself turn red whenever they brought it up. Lily was very nice, but he did not like her in any way that was relevant to mistletoe. Lily reacted to the teasing the same way she had reacted to everything James, Sirius and Peter had done since the beginning of school. She ignored it.

All in all, Remus was quite glad to be leaving for the holidays. He hoped that his guilt over lying to Sirius would have vanished by the time they all returned, and he would come back to find things the way they had been. Being gone for the holidays also meant that he was off the hook for the next full moon. No lies, no excuses, no stories. Considering how narrowly he had escaped the previous month, this was a huge relief.

As they loaded up their trunks the night before they left, there was a definite air of celebration in the room. James kept throwing socks at people, and thinking out loud about all of his favorite kinds of Christmas foods. Peter kept talking about what he hoped he would get for Christmas, and Remus just listened to them and smiled. Only one person seemed less than happy about leaving school.

"You _can_ stay, you know," James told Sirius as he crawled around on the floor, trying to find all the socks he had thrown.

"My mum will be furious with me if I don't go home for Christmas," Sirius said dully.

"Yeah, well, she'll be furious with you no matter what you do, won't she?" James said reasonably. "At least if you stay here, you don't have to deal with it firsthand."

Sirius didn't reply. In fact, he hardly spoke at all until the next morning, when he said, "Write to me, all right?" as they all got ready to leave. There was a note of desperation in his voice, even though he was trying to keep it light and casual.

"Of course we'll write," James said. "And you write to us. Tell us all about a Black family Christmas." Sirius scowled at him.

----------

The calmness of his home was a bit of a shock to Remus after Hogwarts. He had gotten so used to constant noise around him, his friends joking and roughhousing, and people everywhere he went, that being back in a small house with just his parents was very strange. Day after day, he found himself wandering through the house restlessly.

He sent James and Peter their Christmas gifts along with short notes saying that he was having a nice holiday. To Sirius, he wrote several longer letters. Even though he really had nothing exciting to say, he hated the thought of Sirius trapped in a house with only that wretched family for company. His letters may be boring, but at least they were friendly.

The full moon, Christmas, and New Year all passed uneventfully, and soon Remus was longing for the castle and his friends again. The night before he went back to Hogwarts, he wondered what his life would be like if he _didn't _go back. What if he just stayed home? He wouldn't have to worry about lying to his friends, and he wouldn't have to wonder when his secret would be found out and he would be sent home. Even the thought of it was awful. Remus was beginning to realize just how terrible it was going to be when he had to leave Hogwarts. He had never realized just how wonderful it would be to have a normal life, and now that he had a life that was somewhat normal, he felt sickened at the thought of losing it.


	7. Moony

Remus had just set his trunk down in the dormitory when Sirius ran in and flung himself onto his bed.

"My bed!" he cried, his voice muffled. "I love my bed!"

Remus looked over at Peter, who was looking at Sirius in confused amusement.

"Sirius?"

Sirius looked up at them. "You think anyone would notice if I just didn't leave in June? I mean, if I just didn't get on the train back? You think Dumbledore would mind?"

"That bad?" Peter asked, and Sirius nodded miserably before laying his head back down.

"They're completely mad. The whole lot of them. Absolutely nuts. And they hate me just as much as I hate them." An ugly scowl on his face matched the bitterness in his voice.

"Who do we hate?" James asked cheerfully as he entered, dragging his trunk behind him.

"Guess," Sirius muttered.

"Your psychotic family?" Without waiting for an answer, he shoved his trunk into place and opened it. "I have something that I bet will cheer you up." He was practically shaking with excitement. "I got it for Christmas. My dad said it's been in the family for generations, and he figures that now that I'm at school and training to be a wizard, I ought to have it." He was pulling clothes and books out of his trunk and throwing them on the floor behind him. "My mom said to be careful with it, though, and to be responsible, and not to do anything stupid. My dad said it's great for sneaking food from the kitchens."

"What _is_ it?" Sirius asked, his curiosity getting the best of him. He rolled off the bed and crawled over next to James.

"Here it is!" James cried, pulling it out. It was a silvery cloak. Remus, Peter and Sirius all looked at James in confusion.

"Girly dress robes will help you sneak food from the kitchens?" Sirius asked, bemused.

James waggled his eyebrows, and pulled the cloak over his head. All three of his friends gasped as he disappeared from view.

"No _way_," Sirius said in awe, reaching out into the air where James had just stood.

"_Ouch_!" James cried. "Sirius, you poked me in the eye!" He pulled the cloak off of his head, rubbing his eye. Now he just appeared to be a head and an arm, suspended in mid air.

"That is so weird," Peter said, shaking his head.

"We should go exploring!" Sirius said excitedly. "Tonight, after everyone is asleep!"

Remus was getting ready to say he didn't think that was a good idea, but to his surprise, James beat him to it. "I have to be careful," he said. "If we get caught, I'm sure it'll get confiscated. I think we should save it for a worthy occasion."

----------

The morning of the full moon, Remus made up his mind that he was _not_ going to sneak off again. He would tell his friends that he was leaving. He was in Gryffindor, after all. He was brave enough to tell his friends that he would be gone for a night. Apprehension made him quieter than usual that afternoon, which worked in his favor.

"What's wrong?" James asked on the way to dinner that night. "You look tired, and you've hardly said two words today."

Remus jumped on the opportunity. "I don't feel too well, actually," he said. "Not sure what's wrong with me." As they headed into the Great Hall, he split off. "You know, I think I'm going to go see Madame Pomfrey."

He couldn't tell if there was suspicion mingled in with the concern in his friends' looks, but regardless, he figured it had to be better than the disappearing act he pulled the last time. As he walked up the tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow, he felt reasonably optimistic. At the very least, he didn't feel that gloomy dread that had hung over him during his previous trips to the Shrieking Shack.

----------

"We took notes for you again," Sirius said the next evening. Remus had woken up when he heard them come into the room.

"And brought you food." James handed him the napkin piled high with sandwiches.

"Thanks," Remus said, grabbing the top sandwich and taking a huge bite. He had slept through lunch, and he was starving.

"How do you feel?" Peter asked.

"Fine," Remus answered truthfully. Aside from the usual fatigue, some bruises on his torso, and a scratch on his leg, he was in good shape. In fact, as far as full moons went, he thought that this month had gone pretty well.

He realized that his friends weren't talking. They were just standing there quietly, watching him eat.

"What?" he asked around a mouthful of food. There was something about the way they were looking at him. It wasn't suspicion or anger. The closest name that Remus could put to it was disappointment, but that wasn't quite right either.

"Nothing," James said quietly. "We'll let you rest." Remus watched in confusion as they filed out silently.

----------

In the following weeks, things seemed perfectly normal most of time. In fact, Remus couldn't tell if the strange moments he noticed were real, or if he was just being paranoid. He was sure at times that he had seen his friends exchange meaningful looks, or that they had stopped talking the second he walked into the room, but since they were continuing to treat him the same as ever, he decided it must be his imagination.

"I'm sick of this weather," James said one night, staring out the window of the dormitory. The others were getting ready for bed. "I'm ready for it to be spring. I want to be able to go outside again. You know, sunshine, clear skies..."

The powdery snow that had been so entertaining in November was now just gray, February slush. Aside from the miserable treks out to Herbology, students had been castle-bound since Christmas.

"You don't have a broom here," Sirius said. "You couldn't fly even if the weather was nice."

"I know," James said longingly, but he continued to stare out the window anyway.

"Besides," Peter said, "we have a ton of homework over the next couple of weeks."

"Don't worry about it, Peter," Sirius said. "We'll get it done."

Peter, true to his word to Remus, had been trying not to put his work off to the last minute. More often than not, he worked side by side with Remus while James and Sirius goofed off. Remus would do his own work, and once he finished, help Peter. Nothing in the world, however, could prompt James and Sirius to do their work early.

"You still worried about Charms?" Remus asked, and Peter nodded. "Yeah, I'm a little worried about that one too. We'll practice Thursday, before class on Friday, okay?"

"We have that Potions assignment due Friday as well," Sirius reminded him.

"Right," Remus said, making a face. "Fine, we'll practice charms on Wednesday."

The room went strangely silent, and Remus knew there was no chance he was imagining the looks his friends were giving each other now.

"What?" He looked at each of them, but they were all staring determinedly at something else, and shooting furtive glances at each other. "_What_?"

"That's probably not going to work," Sirius said finally.

"Why not?" Remus was completely baffled. Sirius finally looked up.

"Isn't your grandmother going to be sick on Tuesday night?"

It was the strangest sensation. Remus actually felt like the world was closing in around him. Part of his brain was counting the days, realizing that yes, Tuesday was indeed the full moon. Another part was spinning, panicked, and telling Remus to run for the door, to get as far away as he could. Then, in the back of his mind, a tiny part of his brain simply thought, _You knew this was coming all along_. That part combined acceptance and despair in a permeating, black fog.

"Remus?"

Remus tried to pull himself out of that fog. Sirius, James and Peter were all staring at him, waiting. His chest was tight, and he realized he wasn't breathing. He took a moment to concentrate on inhaling and exhaling while he tried to figure out what to say next. No words came.

"We wanted to see you," Peter said. "When you were sick."

"We thought it was the 'worthy occasion' we had been saving the cloak for." James sounded almost apologetic. "We got to the hospital wing, and you weren't there. And between all your injuries and the fact that you were lying to us..."

"It was the lying more than anything," Sirius said quietly. "We knew it had to be something huge for you to lie to us like that. And not just then. We're not stupid, Remus – we knew that you'd been lying to us before."

"When we got back from the hospital wing, we were talking about it in here," James continued. "Trying to figure out what was going on. And the full moon was shining in the window..."

He didn't have to finish. From there, it would have been a simple matter of looking at a calendar. Remus nodded, still searching for words. He finally found two: "Excuse me." He choked on them as he spoke, clumsily getting to his feet from the bed and heading for the door. Sirius locked it with a flick of his wand.

"We can talk about it in the common room, if you'd prefer," James said. "But it really might be best to talk about it here. Don't you think?"

Remus walked back to his bed and sat down. He buried his head in his hands, trying to force his mind to work properly.

"Come on, Remus," Sirius said softly. "Say something."

_I will not cry_, he told himself sternly. _I am in Gryffindor. I will not cry._ He took a shuddering breath, and in a voice that sounded far raspier than his own, he said aloud the thought that had haunted him since before he had ever laid eyes on Hogwarts.

"They'll kick me out."

"Who will?" James asked sharply.

"If parents find out. They'll write to Dumbledore, and he'll have to expel me. He'll have no choice." He felt an impatient surge of anger at himself as he noticed how much his voice was shaking.

"So we won't tell our parents," Sirius said blankly.

Remus shook his head, which still didn't seem to be working right, and looked up at his friends.

Peter and Sirius were both sitting cross-legged on their beds. James was still standing in front of the window. They were all watching him, more serious than he had ever seen them.

Serious, he realized, but not scared. Not repulsed. In fact, they looked stubborn and determined.

He wanted to say about a million things. He wanted to say that he was sorry for lying, and to offer to move out of the room if they didn't want him to stay there, and to ask them why they weren't scared, and to explain to them what it was like, but he couldn't get his brain to pick just one thought.

"How old were you?" Peter asked timidly, breaking the silence. "When you got bit?"

A straightforward question with a straightforward answer. He could handle that. "I was six."

"_Six?_" James swore under his breath. He looked horrified, and angry. Remus searched his face again for a sign of disgust or fear, but again, he found none.

"Where do you go every month?" Sirius asked.

"The Shrieking Shack, in Hogsmeade." His voice sounded more like own again, less raspy. "There's a tunnel from under the Whomping Willow."

"_That's_ why they planted it!" Peter said, making the connection. "I heard some of the professors talking about how it was new back at the start of last term, and I couldn't understand why on earth they would plant something like that."

James and Sirius both let out very small laughs, and Remus managed a small smile. He still wasn't breathing quite regularly enough for laughter.

"Does it hurt?" James's question wiped the smiles off of their faces. Remus saw that now, he _did_ look a little scared.

"Yes."

"They say the Shrieking Shack is haunted. That terrible sounds come from it. Crashing and breaking and sounds like animals in pain." It was Sirius who spoke this time, his voice sounding small and timid, and far more like Peter than like himself. "They say that it's ghosts."

"No ghosts," Remus said softly to his shoes. "Just me." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sirius shudder.

They sat in silence for a minute. When Remus looked up, all three of them were frowning, apparently deep in thought. They looked troubled.

"You guys..." he began, but he didn't know how to finish the thought. You guys don't hate me? You guys still want to be my friends? You guys aren't scared? He couldn't bring himself to actually say any of those things.

"Nothing changes, Remus," James said. "We're still us."

"And you're still one of us," Peter added.

"_Nothing changes_," Remus echoed to himself under his breath, blinking furiously.

"Nothing," James repeated.

"No more lies." Remus looked up at Sirius. "We tell each other the truth from now on. Deal?"

Remus looked at each of them in turn, and nodded. "Deal," he said quietly.

It was as though an official meeting had been adjourned. Peter crawled under his covers, Sirius closed the hangings around his bed, and James changed into his pajamas. Remus continued to sit on the side of his bed, trying to get his brain to tell his lungs that it was okay to breathe now.

James paused before he closed the hangings around his bed. "You all right?"

Remus considered for a moment. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'm all right." He was trying very hard to pretend like his face wasn't at all wet.

"Good," James said. "It's late. Get some sleep, Moony."


	8. In the Shrieking Shack

The following Tuesday, Remus woke with a strange feeling in his gut. For almost as long as he could remember, he had woken the morning of the full moon feeling full of dread. Since coming to Hogwarts, that dread of the night itself had been compounded with an outright terror of being discovered. The absence of that fear was so noticeable Tuesday morning, that the dread really didn't seem all that bad. In fact, without having to worry about making up a story, he felt downright cheerful that day. It wasn't until dinner approached that the usual nervousness started.

"So what happens now?" Sirius asked as they sat down at the table.

"Well," Remus said, "now we take food off of the plates in the center, and we put them on our own plates. Then we eat it." The words popped out of him without him thinking about it, and his eyes widened at his own daring. Though James and Sirius tormented each other constantly, Remus had never really been bold enough to insult one of them before.

Sirius stared at him while James and Peter laughed. "You're supposed to be the nice one!" he said indignantly. "We're supposed to be the smart-asses!"

"We're rubbing off on him," James said proudly, "but seriously, Remus. What happens now?"

"Not here," Remus whispered, looking up and down the crowded table. "Not when everyone is around!"

"Everyone is busy," Sirius said dismissively. "They won't hear."

Remus glared at them, but all three of them were looking at him expectantly. He sighed, resigned. "I'll go to the hospital wing. Madame Pomfrey will walk with me out to-" he paused, looking around. No one else was paying attention. "Out to the tree," he finished. "Then she'll come back for me in the morning." He shrugged. "That's it, really."

"How do you get in the tree?"

"Not in it," Remus said. "Under it, really. There's a knot on the trunk, and you levitate a branch and hit it and it kind of makes the tree fall asleep so you can get-" he stopped. He hadn't noticed the expression on James's face as he asked the question. His eyes had that evil glint in them. "_James_," he said, panicked. "Don't even _think_ about it!"

"I wasn't," James said with unconvincing innocence.

"But what happens once you get into the shack?" Peter asked.

"I am _not_ talking about that here!" Remus hissed. "Talk about something else now."

They looked disappointed, but realized that they weren't going to get any more out of him. He ate the rest of his dinner in stony silence. For the first time, he didn't have to try to sneak off after dinner. His friends walked with him partway to the hospital wing.

"So what _does_ happen once you get into the shack?" James asked quietly as they walked. He sounded more curious and less excited than Peter had.

"What do you think happens?" Remus asked. He really didn't want to talk to them about this. To them, the term "werewolf" was really just a word. He suspected that this was why they were fine with him. He knew that none of them knew anything about the reality of the condition, and he kind of wanted it to stay that way. He didn't want them to think about him actually transforming into a wolf, into a monster.

On the other hand, their lack of understanding might get them killed, Remus realized, remembering James's question at dinner. He stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned to face them.

"Promise me that you won't try to get into the Shrieking Shack," he said. He was speaking to all three of them, but he was looking at James.

"We wouldn't dream of it," Sirius said, and Remus could tell by his tone that he was already formulating a plan.

"I'm _serious_-" Remus said.

"No, I am."

"_Shut up!_ I mean it! If you come in there, I could kill you. All right? Actually kill you. Or worse."

"Worse? What's worse than killing us?" Peter said. Remus stared at him pointedly.

"It's really worse than being killed?" James asked softly. Remus hesitated. He didn't really think it was worse than being killed. He was quite glad to be alive. But he didn't know how to explain to his friends how terrible it was without being melodramatic.

"Just promise me you won't come in," he pleaded, and they nodded.

"All right," said James, and Remus saw that he meant it.

"I've got to hurry," he said, glancing out of the window at the twilight. "I'll see you tomorrow."

----------

Once again, Remus awoke to the sounds of his friends coming into the room, Peter holding a stack of sandwiches, and Sirius holding a roll of parchment with the day's notes.

"Any battle wounds?" Sirius asked conversationally as he set down the parchment next to Remus's bag.

"Nothing terrible," Remus yawned, reaching for the sandwiches.

"Except for that one?" James gestured to a cut on his arm.

Remus shrugged. "There are always some," he said.

Sirius glanced out the window. The day before had been cold and dreary, and a wet snow had started falling at some point during the night. Now the grounds were coated in slush. "It was freezing last night," he said. "Did you get cold?"

"I was fine once I..." he trailed off. _Changed? Transformed?_ He didn't know what word to use.

"What about when you're... you know," Peter said. "Just you?" Remus shrugged.

"Do you sleep?" Sirius asked.

"Rarely," Remus said as he took a bite of his sandwich.

"What do you do then? Just wander around the Shrieking Shack?"

Remus thought about the Shrieking Shack, with its trashed furniture and blood on the floor and walls, and he thought about the cuts and scars on his arms. Instead of answering, he took an extra large bite of sandwich and shrugged. James was frowning.

"Do you get lonely?" he asked.

"I... don't know," Remus said, thinking. "Not really. I mean, I have to be alone, don't I? I-" he stopped himself. Nothing in the world could have prompted him to tell them that when he was a wolf, he craved human flesh, and that if he smelled a human it drove him mad. "I can't be around people," he finished lamely. "I'm dangerous."

"Only to people?" James asked. "I mean, couldn't you be around other animals? Then you wouldn't totally alone."

"I suppose," Remus said, "if they were big animals. I assume I would eat... I mean, if it was a smaller animal..." he cleared his throat. "I've never really thought about it before. I do all right, though. It's only for one night."

"You still think we're going to freak out at some point, don't you?" Sirius asked. "That if you mention anything wolf-life, like eating animals or people, we'll panic." Remus looked at Sirius in surprise. "You really ought to start trusting us, Moony," he said. "Have we ever given you any reason to think we're going to bail on you?"

Remus smiled. "No," he admitted. "It's just weird. I can't figure out why you aren't scared."

"Well, we're either brave, ignorant, or stupid," James said. "_Or_, we know you, and we know who you are, and we know _what _you are, and that you can't help being what you are." He shrugged. "Besides, what do we have to be scared of? You're locked up during the full moon, and as far as I can tell, that's far worse for you than it is for anyone else. And the rest of the time, you're not exactly dangerous. I'm pretty sure that when you're not a wolf, I could sit on you while Sirius beat you up."

----------

"I have a plan," James said one Saturday morning as they left breakfast.

"Is this the kind of plan that lands us in detention?" Remus asked warily.

"I think so," James said cheerfully. "See that line over there?" They looked over at a crowd of older students lining up to exit the Great Hall. "Know where they're going?"

"Hogsmeade," Peter said, confused. "So?"

"_So_, you can't go to Hogsmeade unless you're a third year or up, right?"

"Right," Remus said slowly. He was pretty sure that James was getting ready to suggest that they all get under the Invisibility Cloak and sneak into Hogsmeade. He was about to point out that if they got caught, they would be lucky if all they got was a detention, but James cut him off before he could get any words out.

"_Unless_," James was grinning now, "you know a secret passage."

They stared at him for a moment, then Peter and Sirius's eyes widened. "Oh!" they exclaimed, grinning. Remus continued to stare at them in confusion.

"Uh... do we know a secret passage?" he asked stupidly.

"C'mon, Moony, think!" Sirius said.

"Don't call me Moony," he whispered frantically. The nickname had stuck, and when they were alone, Remus didn't bother fighting them about it, but he was constantly asking them not to call him that when other people were around.

"Who sneaks through a secret passageway into Hogsmeade once a month?" Peter asked, smirking, and it clicked.

"What? The Whomping Willow?" he asked, alarmed.

"Of course!" James cried. "We can levitate things, we can get in!"

"But we can't get _out_," Remus said. "Not on the other side, I mean. We won't be able to actually get into Hogsmeade. The whole point of the Shrieking Shack is that it's completely safe – no one can get in or out."

Sirius shrugged. "We'll still get to see the inside of the Shrieking Shack," he said. "At least it's something new."

Remus thought of the blood and mangled furniture. "No, it's really not that interesting," he said, but his friends were already walking away.

"In here," James said, leading them into an empty classroom. "All right, everyone under the cloak. We can't be seen going in."

"It's just an empty building," Remus insisted as they set out.

"Quiet, Moony, or someone will hear you," Sirius said. "Besides, it's not like we have anything else to do."

Remus kept up a constant stream of things that they _could_ be doing the entire way across the grounds, naming everything from homework assignments to games to cleaning their dormitory.

"Clean our _dormitory_?" James repeated incredulously, turning around to look at him in amazement, and Remus knew he was beat. He hoped, for a moment, that they wouldn't be able to get in, but James managed to levitate a stick over to the knot easily, and then they were darting through the unmoving branches to the base of the trunk. James pulled the cloak off of them, folding it up and stuffing it under his robes. "Lead the way, Moony!" he said adventurously.

Remus was not feeling at all adventurous, but as far as he could tell, he had no choice. He led them down the tunnel, and up into the Shrieking Shack.

He felt rather how he had felt the first time he had met Professor Dumbledore. He had been sitting in his room, oblivious to the plans his parents had been attempting to make regarding his magical education. There had been a knock at his door, and the old wizard in the bright blue robes had introduced himself and asked if he could come in. Dirty clothes and books and trash had littered the floor of his room, and he had felt terribly embarrassed. As Dumbledore talked to him about Hogwarts, and about the ways in which they could accommodate him, Remus had wished that his parents had given him a few minutes notice so he could tidy up his room.

What he wouldn't give now for a few minutes to clean up before his friends saw this place. It looked, if anything, even worse than he had envisioned as they tramped across the grounds. There were tufts of fur caught in the jagged edges of the wooden furniture, and even in the walls and floors, and everything had claw and tooth marks in it. The worst part, though, was the blood. There were bloodstains on the floors and on the walls, and even in the very faint light, it would be hard not to notice them.

As his friends climbed into the room behind him, he faced the room instead of facing them. He heard someone gasp, and he heard James swear. The three of them stepped out from behind him, and began walking around the room. They explored the house silently. He heard someone walk up the stairs, and heard someone in the next room. James stayed in the room with him, walking slowly, taking in all the damage. His face was unreadable. Peter came back in, looking very uncomfortable. He wouldn't look at Remus, and he kept looking in vain to James for cues.

"I went through this whole place," Sirius broke the silence from the doorway. "Not a single window."

"Well, no," Remus said. "Of course not. I mean, there isn't any way in or out, that's the whole point. And people are supposed to think I'm a ghost, remember? We can't let them see me."

"I guess," Sirius said, but he still sounded annoyed. "Just seems like kind of a depressing place without windows. So dark."

"Yeah," Remus said, and he couldn't keep back a snicker as he said, "Shame that the moonlight can't come in."

They all laughed, and the tension was broken.

"I don't suppose there's any chance that all of this blood is from you snacking on rats?" James asked sadly as he looked at one of the walls.

"No."

"We've seen what you look like when you come back. All that blood had to go somewhere, I guess," Peter said. He looked helpless and resigned as he looked around the room.

"Hey, quiet!" Sirius said, rushing over to one of the walls. "I think I hear someone out there!" Sure enough, voices were approaching the shack.

"Here," James whispered, grabbing a severely deformed table and pushing it up against the wall. "I think if we stand on it, we might be able to see through that crack up there."

Sirius, being the tallest of them, climbed onto the table. The other three stood behind him, ready to try to catch him if the table collapsed.

"Slytherins!" Sirius growled, but the word was hardly out of his mouth before a wide grin spread across his face.

"What?" Remus asked, but Sirius turned the grin on James, who began to grin back. Then, startling Remus backwards into a chair, James let out a loud shriek.

"What are you _doing_?" Remus asked frantically. "They'll hear you!"

Sirius echoed James's shriek, and jumped down from the table with the loudest thump he could manage. Outside, Remus heard students shouting, panic in their voices. Catching on, Peter let out a loud, ghostly howl. Despite himself, Remus started laughing. James tried to scream again, but dissolved into laughter instead, falling down on the floor, and Remus screamed the shrillest, highest scream he could manage before collapsing next to James, tears in his eyes.

Sirius jumped back onto the table and looked out the crack. "Oh, look at them run," he exclaimed gleefully. Remus climbed up onto the table next to him, and by standing on his very tiptoes, he was able to see five figures fleeing down the hill.

Still cackling, the four friends headed back to the castle for lunch. As they climbed down into the tunnel, none of them noticed the bloodstains on the floor and walls.

_Author's Note: I'm trying to get this finished ASAP, seeing as how I'm going to be forced to rejoin the grown-up world later this week. Hopefully I'll have it done within the next couple of days._


	9. Another Year

The Slytherins told everyone who would listen about the angry ghosts they heard at the Shrieking Shack. It occurred to Remus that the story was bound to get around to McGonagall, Pomfrey, and even Dumbledore, all of whom knew that the shack wasn't actually haunted.

"Don't worry about it," Sirius said. "There's no way anyone could ever prove it was us."

"I'm the only one who knows how to get into the tunnel!" Remus whispered as they walked down the hall to Transfiguration.

"Not necessarily," Sirius argued. "Someone could have been watching and seen you go in with Madame Pomfrey."

"That's really not a comforting thought, Sirius," Remus said gloomily.

"There's no way the Slytherins can even prove that they really heard anything at all. For all the professors know, they're just making it up," Peter said. "Cheer up, Moony."

"Don't call me Moony," Remus said for the millionth time.

"Why not?" James asked, rolling his eyes. "No one is going to figure it out."

"You did," Remus pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but we live with you," Peter said reasonably. "We were bound to notice that you weren't there."

"And you think people aren't going to notice I'm missing classes?"

"Well, your grandmother _is_ very ill," Sirius said, smirking. "And you're rather delicate too, I'm afraid."

"What?" Remus cried indignantly. "I am not _delicate_!" His friends all laughed.

"Sick as often as you are?" James said, shaking his head. "I'm afraid you are."

Remus glared at them, and James slung an arm around his shoulder. "Relax, Remus. People might eventually suspect something is up, but unless they know you're gone at nights, they'll never make the connection."

"And it's not like we're not going to cover for you," Sirius pointed out.

"Yeah, it'll be easy," Peter said. "If anyone says anything, we'll just say that you were sick in bed. You obviously can't be – well, if you're sleeping in the same room with us, they can't suspect you."

"And next year we'll tell everyone that we met your family over the summer, and that your grandmother really is very ill," James said as he walked into the classroom. He turned back to look at Remus. "Hey, Remus? What's wrong?"

He had stopped in the hallway, and was staring blankly into space, his mouth hanging open slightly.

"Remus?" Peter repeated as they all walked back to him.

"Next year..." Remus said. "You said 'next year'..."

His friends glanced at each other, confused. "Yeah?" Sirius prompted.

"I'm not coming back next year," Remus said faintly to himself.

"_What?_" they exclaimed at once, and immediately began crying, "But you have to!" "Why not?" and "Of course you are!"

He didn't want to even think about it. If he thought that he might really be able to come back next year, and then it couldn't happen, he would be devastated. He had not once considered the possibility of a second year at Hogwarts. One year – that was all he had dreamed.

"_Moony!_" Sirius yelled as McGonagall walked past them into the classroom, drawing Remus back to earth. "Are you going to tell us what in the name of Merlin you're talking about?"

"Sorry," Remus said. He glanced around to make sure there was no one else nearby. "I just thought when I came to Hogwarts that I would be lucky if I made it one year without getting expelled. I never thought I might actually get to come back for a second year." He grinned at them. "But it might really happen, won't it?"

"Of course it's going to happen," James said. "You heard us, we'll cover for you."

"And don't scare us like that," Peter said as they walked back into class.

Remus had a hard time focusing during class. _Next year_... he kept playing the words in his head. For the first time, he imagined himself riding the Hogwarts express with James, Sirius and Peter. He thought about riding the horseless carriages that he had heard the older students talk about. _Next year_...

A wad of paper landed on his desk from Sirius's direction. He unwrinkled it and read,

_If you don't start taking notes, I'm going to have to do it, and I have a very strict policy on this. I only take notes for you once a month._

Sirius raised his eyebrows and nodded to the mostly-blank roll of parchment sitting on Remus's desk.

"_Accio note._" With alarm, Remus saw the note fly off of his desk and to the front of the room, straight into McGonagall's outstretched hand. "Mister Lupin, Mister Black, please see me after class."

As usual when they were in trouble, Remus felt nervous and guilty, and Sirius looked completely unfazed. Beside them, James and Peter were both snickering. For the rest of class, Remus focused on taking notes.

As the other students filed out, McGonagall was standing in the front of the class. She was reading the note.

"Mister Potter, Mister Pettigrew," she stopped them as they headed to the door.

"Hey, we weren't passing notes!" James said immediately. Very rarely could he sincerely claim to be innocent.

"Yes, I know," McGonagall said, "but could you please wait with Mister Black in the hallway?" She waited until they had shut the door before turning to Remus. She considered him for a moment before speaking, and he was surprised to see that she didn't look the slightest bit angry, only slightly concerned. "Mister Lupin," she said finally, "I couldn't help but notice that your friends have a new nickname for you."

Remus blinked in surprise. "What?" What did his nickname have to do with anything?

"Moony," McGonagall said. "Mister Black was calling you "Moony" when I walked past you earlier, and I believe I've heard your friends call you that several times in the last few weeks."

"Oh, right," Remus said.

"Given that, and given this note," McGonagall held up the confiscated note, "is it safe for me to assume that you've told your friends the details of your situation?" Remus couldn't tell whether or not she was upset.

"I didn't exactly tell them," Remus said. "They just kind of put it together. Apparently it was kind of obvious."

McGonagall nodded thoughtfully. "I'm aware your friends are quite clever."

She pointed her wand at the door, and it swung open again. "Gentlemen, if you please," she said, gesturing them inside. As they filed in, James and Peter seemed like they were trying to decide whether or not they should be feeling guilty about something. The door closed again behind them.

"Mister Lupin has just informed me that you are all aware of his condition." James snorted, and McGonagall stopped to stare at him.

"Sorry," he said quickly. "You called it his 'condition.'"

"What do you call it?" Remus muttered to him, and he shrugged.

"I don't know, I've never called it anything." He turned back to McGonagall, his respectful, innocent face in place.

"You boys understand the complexity and delicacy of the issue?" she asked, and Remus saw all three faces twitch at her use of the word 'delicacy.'

"Yes, we do," Sirius said, his black eyes twinkling, but his face solemn.

"We're not going to tell anyone, Professor," Peter said. "The last thing we want is for Remus to leave."

"Do I have your word on that?" McGonagall asked. "From each of you?" Each boy nodded, the half-smiles and twinkling eyes gone.

"You have our word," James said, very seriously. "We'll keep our mouths shut."

"Good," McGonagall said, and the boys headed for the door.

"One more thing," McGonagall said, just before they reached it. "I'm trusting you boys to use common sense. This is a serious matter. Do not treat it lightly."

Remus was impressed by how well McGonagall knew them. It was almost as though she suspected that his friends might try to hatch a plan to sneak in and see him during a full moon. He was also quite certain that, despite his friends' assurances, she might suspect the truth about the Slytherins' story of the Shrieking Shack.

"They'll be responsible, Professor," he said. Then, in a low voice that he hoped his friends couldn't hear, "They understand. I'm making sure they understand."

McGonagall nodded, then gave him a small, though rather kind, smile as he turned and followed his friends out of the room.

"She was so busy making sure we weren't going to do anything stupid that she forgot to punish us for passing notes!" Sirius said exuberantly.

"Think she knew about the Shrieking Shack?" Peter asked, worried.

"Nah," James said. "She's just making sure we're not going to do anything stupid."

"Apparently she thinks we're idiots," Sirius said scornfully. Remus bit his tongue, choosing not to remind them that only a few weeks before, they had come very, very close to being idiots.

----------

"I wish I had my broom," James said for the fiftieth time that week as they walked down to the greenhouse. Spring was finally arriving, and the sunny skies were making all of the students restless.

"We all wish you had your broom," Sirius said, rolling his eyes. "Then you could fly on it for ten minutes, and quit telling us how much you wish you had your broom." He ducked as James punched him, and Remus walked straight into him.

"Are you reading _while_ you're walking?" James asked in disbelief as he helped Sirius up from the ground.

"I have six more inches to do on my essay, and I have to get it done before tonight," Remus said, looking at them over the book he was holding in front of his face.

"What? The great Remus Lupin left his homework to the last minute?" James asked, only half-kidding.

"I forgot about it," Remus admitted. The warm weather and bright skies had gotten to him as well. It was hard to be focused or stressed when you could be throwing rocks in the lake, or relaxing under the trees.

"I'm sure Slughorn will give you an extension," Peter said. "We'll just tell him you're ill."

"Which you will be, in a way," Sirius said.

"Dumbledore will back us up," Peter pointed out.

"Yeah, if anyone can get away with turning in homework late, it's you," Sirius said. "Among other things, the teachers all love you."

"Now, if _we_ tried to get an extension on homework, they'd laugh in our face," James said.

"Only because you still wouldn't do the homework, with or without the extension."

"Good point," James said.

"Speaking of homework," Remus said, trying to sound casual, "We should probably start reviewing for exams soon."

His friends stared at him, aghast.

"Exams!" Sirius cried. "They're like two months away!"

"Yes, but if we put it all off to the last week, we'll never be able to get it all in," Remus said reasonably. They laughed at him, but as they reached the greenhouse, Remus pulled James back.

"Listen," he said quietly, "I know that you and Sirius probably don't need to review much, but Peter and I do."

"What do you mean?" James asked, frowning.

"You know what I mean," Remus said. "And it'll be really hard to get Peter to study if you and Sirius are out having fun. It'll be hard to get _me_ to study, come to that. So just study a little bit over the next few weeks, James. Please."

"Yeah, sure," James said. "Of course. We'll study."

----------

_Author's Note: I learned an awful truth today: The Marauders did not learn Remus's secret until second year. I could not find this in the books, but the Harry Potter Lexicon confirmed it. I absolutely hate inconsistencies with the books, so depending on how much school and work kick my butt in the coming weeks, I may try to rewrite this so that it spans two years. Not sure if that will work or not. In the meantime, I'm going to go ahead and finish the story, because, to be perfectly frank, I'm really enjoying writing it, and I've put enough into it that I want it to be finished._


	10. What You Are

"No," Remus said.

"Why not?" Sirius demanded.

"Because we promised McGonagall that we'd behave! Where's my Charms book?" Sirius sat up from where he was laying sprawled in the grass, and handed Remus the book he had been using for a pillow.

"We promised her we'd use common sense and not do anything stupid," Sirius corrected him. "I'm absolutely certain that I never made a promise to behave."

For the past two weeks, Remus had been insisting that they spend two nights a week and at least one weekend afternoon reviewing for exams. The others had agreed, though Remus was sure that Sirius had only done so because James made him. He tended to review by doodling on his parchment and charming whatever happened to be nearby. His favorite thing to do was to charm his quill into floating, and use it to tickle his friends' ears. This usually resulted in James telling him exactly where he was going to put the quill if Sirius didn't stop it.

Today, however, Sirius had something new to focus on. The following Saturday was another Hogsmeade trip, and Sirius was determined to return to the Shrieking Shack.

"What does a Hogsmeade weekend have to do with it anyway?" Peter asked. "We can go through the Whomping Willow any time." Peter stared hard at the toad they had captured, and flicked his wand again. He had been trying for an hour to turn it into a teapot, but so far all he had accomplished was making its head steam a little bit.

"Less flick, more swish," James said. Quite aside from the fact that it was easier to study if they weren't tempted to be out doing other things, James was a very useful study partner to have around. Like Sirius, he seemed to absorb information without even trying, but he was also very good at teaching. Though occasionally still annoyed at having to work so much harder than James did, Remus was beginning to appreciate his help.

As Remus tried to find the chapter on making fruit dance, an owl swept past them, dropping a letter on Sirius's head. Sirius recoiled, looking at the letter like it was poisonous.

"That's the third one this week," James said. "I don't suppose it's a sign that your mother is becoming more accepting and affectionate?" Though he said the words lightly, there was a coldness in his hazel eyes that only appeared there when talking about Sirius's family. Sirius shook his head.

"She says she's just keeping me up to date on the family news," Sirius muttered. "Mostly about my cousins marrying pure-bloods, and some new anti-Mudblood movement that's going on." His eyes flew open, and he clapped a hand over his mouth. "_Damn it!_" he yelled, flopping back down on the ground and covering his face with his hands.

"It's all right," James said quietly. "Sirius, sit up, it's all right."

"No, it's _not_ all right," Sirius yelled as he sat up. "I hate it! I hate being one of them!"

"You're _not _one of them!" Peter exclaimed in surprise. "You're nothing like them, Sirius! That's the whole problem, isn't it?"

"Didn't you hear what I just said?" Sirius asked. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "I didn't even know it was a bad word until about a year ago. My cousin, Andromeda, chewed me out for using it." He smirked slightly. "She married a mud-, I mean, a muggleborn last fall. My dad actually cried." With a look of resignation, he picked the letter back up and opened it. He scanned it briefly.

"The whole anti-muggleborn movement is being lead by someone called Volde-something, we donated a whole bunch of money to the ministry – there's a shocker – blah, blah, blah."

"Let's call it a day," Remus said, slipping his books back into his bag.

"Really?" Sirius asked hopefully.

"Yeah," Remus said. "I think we've done enough for today. Hey James, did you bring your Fanged Frisbee?"

They spent the next hour tossing the snarling frisbee to each other, Sirius throwing it harder than was really necessary, and laughing rather unkindly when Peter got bit. It was only once the frisbee bit _him_, causing his hand to bleed profusely, that he seemed to snap out of sulking and started laughing again. For a few minutes, it looked like everything was fine, and Sirius's family was forgotten.

"Shouldn't we take you to the hospital wing?" Peter asked as they headed back toward the castle.

"Nah," Sirius said cheerfully. "It's already stopped bleeding."

He stopped suddenly. A group of older Slytherins were sitting on the ground, and they were going to have to walk directly past them in order to get in the castle. His face hardened as he saw them. Sirius often reacted like this to Slytherins. Remus knew that he associated Slytherin House with his family, and therefore despised every one of them. Eyes straight ahead, Sirius began to walk quickly past them, his friends following.

"Aren't you going to say hello, Sirius?" A snide, taunting voice came from the group.

"Keep walking," James whispered, clearly understanding something that Remus and Peter didn't.

"Look at him, marching past us," the girl said in a false hurt voice. "Too good to be seen talking to us, aren't you?" She flipped her dark hair over her shoulder, smirking. "You all know Sirius, right?" she said to her friends. "He's our self-righteous little blood-traitor."

"_Keep going!_" James hissed. Sirius had stopped, though he still had his back to the group. "Just ignore them, Sirius!"

"Aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?" the girl asked, her dark eyes moving in turn to Remus, Peter, and finally resting on James.

"Let's go," Peter said quietly to Sirius, and the girl's eyes turned to him.

"Do you take orders from Mudbloods now, Sirius?"

Sirius spun around to face her, and his wand flashed so fast that Remus barely saw it. The girl threw up her hands before the violet light hit her face. Bleeding red welts blistered instantly across her arms, and she looked at Sirius in shock.

"Guess you shouldn't have taught me that one when we were kids, " Sirius said nastily.

She was looking at her arms and whimpering, and James had the back of Sirius's robes and was dragging him into the castle. Remus and Peter followed quickly.

----------

If Sirius was at all worried about getting in trouble for cursing the Slytherin girl, he didn't show it. He stormed back in forth in the dormitory for nearly an hour, every once in a while starting to rant, but never getting farther than a few strangled, garbled words before lapsing back into silence.

"Wretched, horrid... never should have... they don't even... like I would ever..."

Even James was silent. They all just sat and watched Sirius pace. Remus wasn't sure that Sirius even realized they were there, and wondered if they should leave him alone. James, however, showed absolutely no intention of leaving. He sat on the floor, his gaze never leaving Sirius's face, waiting.

Remus kept an ear out for approaching footsteps coming up the stairs, certain that McGonagall or a prefect would be coming for Sirius any minute. He had no idea what spell Sirius had used on the girl, but he knew it was bad. He wondered how much trouble Sirius would be in, and if it would help at all if they stood up for him and explained that he had been provoked.

Sirius finally stopped pacing and stood by the table by the window. He leaned his forehead against the wall, his eyes closed, his face defeated.

"I can't believe I used that spell," he finally whispered.

"You were angry," Peter said simply.

"No, not that," Sirius said, shaking his head as he pushed himself off of the wall. "I really couldn't care less that I hurt Bella. She's my least favorite cousin, and that's saying something. It's just, _she_ really was the one who taught me that spell." He sank to the floor beside his bed and looked at James. "That was Dark Magic." The self-loathing on his face bordered on despair.

"You're not like them," James insisted. "You're not, Sirius."

"I'm not sure," he whispered.

"We are," Remus said firmly.

"Do you realize," Sirius said a minute later, "that we only have six weeks of school left?"

The only thought Remus had given to the end of school was that they needed to study for exams. He hadn't really thought about the fact that they would be heading home once exams were over. Looking at the expression of hopelessness on Sirius's face, he realized that Sirius had thought about it a lot. To him, every mention of the end of the term was a reminder of what he was going back to. Remus squirmed guiltily as he thought about how much he had talked about exams over the past couple of weeks.

"You can come visit me over the summer," James said. "They'll let you come see _me_, right?"

Sirius considered for a moment, then nodded. "I think so. My mum won't love the idea, but..." Sirius trailed off.

"You should try us first," Remus suggested quietly. "Peter's muggleborn, and I'm a half-blood. They'll be so appalled that when you suggest James, they'll probably be thrilled."

Sirius shook his head, looking sick. "But you're my friends too," he whispered guiltily. "I don't want my family to be appalled..."

He looked so ashamed, sitting on the floor, refusing to meet their eyes, and Remus felt angry at Sirius's family, not because they would consider him inferior for being a half-blood, but because Sirius couldn't escape them.

"Hey," he said, and Sirius looked up at him. "We know you," he said. "We know what you are. And we know who you are." The words echoed familiarly around the room, and the faintest ghost of a smile flitted across Sirius's face.


	11. Respect Your Elders

Remus kept waiting for the teachers to get word of what had happened between Sirius and his cousin, but days passed and still Sirius wasn't in trouble. He followed James's lead in not mentioning the incident.

"You look awful, Moony!" Sirius cried the evening following the full moon. Three deep cuts striped his bruised cheek.

"I know," Remus said gloomily. "Where are my sandwiches?"

"They're right here," James said, snickering slightly.

"What's so funny?" he asked suspiciously.

"It's just that you're always so nice and polite-"

"Most of the time," Sirius interrupted.

"-but after every full moon, you're... well, not exactly cranky," James said, apparently searching for the right word.

"I think 'cranky' works," Peter objected.

Remus felt himself blush. "Sorry," he mumbled, but his friends laughed.

"It's not like you're mean or anything," Sirius said. "You're just not quite your normal self. It's really kind of entertaining to see that you're not perfect."

"I'm _not _perfect!" he protested, accidentally spitting out a piece of bread.

"We know that," James said. "But sometimes you fake it pretty well."

"You definitely have the teachers fooled," Peter agreed. "Perhaps we should make Flitwick bring you sandwiches next month."

They were interrupted by the tapping of a beak on the window, and they all froze. They all generally received their post at breakfast, like everyone else. The only post that ever came during the days and evenings were the letters from Sirius's mum.

James walked over and opened the window, retrieving the letter from the owl.

"Want me to read it first?" he asked.

Sirius flopped backward on his bed. "Go for it," he said resignedly.

James sat down on his own bed, his back to Sirius, and ripped open the letter. His face was completely expressionless for several seconds, his eyes darting back and forth across the page. Then suddenly, his eyes widened and his face went white. He looked up from the letter and stared at Remus, panic on his face. Remus raised his eyebrows questioningly, but James had gone back to the letter.

"So what does it say?" Sirius asked in a monotone.

James looked at the paper in front of him with absolute loathing. "They had a guest last week."

"Who?" Sirius asked.

James spat the words out bitterly. "The headmaster of Durmstrang."

"_What?_" Sirius cried, leaping up and grabbing the letter. He read it frantically.

"What? They want to send you to Durmstrang?" Peter asked fearfully.

"She doesn't say that," James said.

"But she certainly implies it, doesn't she?" Sirius used his wand to light the letter on fire, and watched it drift to the floor. "I won't go. I won't."

----------

"We ought to respect our elders, don't you think?" James asked the following night in the common room. Most of their fellow Gryffindors had gone to bed, Remus was studying, and Sirius and Peter were playing Exploding Snap. All three of them stopped what they were doing to stare at James.

"What?" Sirius asked, staring at James like he had lost his mind.

"I mean, they're generally wiser than us, right? And they have our best interests at heart?"

Sirius looked over at Remus, dumbfounded, but Remus could only shrug helplessly.

"James?" Peter asked tentatively.

"Yes?"

"Are you out of your mind?" Sirius actually looked almost worried as he stared at his best friend.

"I don't think so," James said thoughtfully. "It's just that my dad _did_ give me the cloak, and he _did_ say it was good for nicking food from the kitchens, and I've never used it for that..."

Relief flooded all three of their faces.

"That was really weird for a moment there," Remus murmured, going back to his book.

"Really, guys!" James said. "We've been far too serious recently. When's the last time we had a little fun?"

"You seemed to enjoy Potions class today, when you were throwing daisy roots into that Slytherin's potion when he wasn't looking," Remus said.

"Yeah, well, he's a little git, isn't he?" James said dismissively. "And he pulled it off all right, didn't he? Not sure _how_ he pulled it off, but he did."

"It's late," Remus said. "If we get caught out of bed, it'll mean detention."

"So let's not get caught," Sirius said, grinning at him. He looked excited. Remus thought about his mother's letters, and sighed.

"Fine," he said. "Let's go get some food."

He couldn't deny that there was something exciting about sneaking through the castle at night. He had only been under James's cloak a couple of times, and it had always been during the day, like when they had snuck into the Shrieking Shack. Slipping through the dark hallways, holding his breath, he felt rather adventurous.

"Does anyone actually know where the kitchens are?" Peter whispered.

"Downstairs, somewhere," Sirius said.

"Downstairs is a big place," Remus pointed out.

"We'll find them," James said confidently. "My dad said something about a painting of fruit before my mom shushed him."

"So we're looking for a painting of fruit, 'somewhere downstairs,' does that sound about right?" Remus said. If his friends caught his sarcasm, they ignored it.

"Uh oh," James said, stopping abruptly. They all bumped into each other and stumbled, trying not to fall over and risk exposing themselves.

"What?" Sirius started to ask, but stopped before the word was all the way out of his mouth. There, a few feet in front of them, was a cat. They had seen this cat before. She was the beloved pet of Mr. Filch, the caretaker whose greatest joy was catching students in wrongdoing.

"Think she can see through the cloak?" Peter asked nervously, but before any of them could answer, Filch burst through a tapestry ahead on the right.

"What is it, my love?" he asked, looking up and down the hallway. "Students out of bed?" He followed her gaze, staring straight through the four boys.

They were standing directly in the middle of the hallway. If Filch tried to walk that direction, it was almost certain that he would walk right into them.

James was tapping everybody on the arm, trying to get their attention. Jerking his head, he began to inch toward the wall. If he hadn't been so terrified of getting caught, Remus would have found the whole thing very funny. The four of them were trying to move as one body, very slowly, without making any noise, and it was very crowded under the cloak, forcing them to take very small steps. It was almost as though they were shuffling along as a silent, eight-legged penguin.

They made it to the wall and took refuge behind a statue of a one-eyed witch. Slowly, listening hard, Filch walked past them, stepping through the exact spot they had been standing moments before.

"We'll find them, Mrs. Norris," he murmured to his cat as they turned the corner and disappeared.

James busted out laughing, a desperately-trying-to-be-silent, stifled, tears-filling-his-eyes laugh.

"Shut up!" Remus hissed, pressing his hand over James's mouth. "You're going to get us caught!" James composed himself, his shoulders still shaking, but no longer making any noise. "You better?" Remus asked. James nodded, eyes still twinkling, and Remus removed his hand. "Can we go back now?" he whispered, the thrill of the adventure gone.

"Of course not!" James said mischievously. "We haven't found the kitchen yet!" He set off again, and the others had no choice but to follow him, trying to keep under the cloak. "Let's try down this way."

They slipped through a tapestry and started down a staircase. They were halfway down when, with a yelp, Sirius's foot went straight through a trick step. Peter ran into him, knocking him forward into James, who lost his footing and tumbled down several steps, his wand clattering out of his hand. He yelled as he landed at the bottom, the cloak hanging off of his foot.

"You okay?" Remus called, trying to help Peter lift Sirius out of the trick step.

"Yeah, I'm fine," James said, laughing. "I just..." he trailed off, his eyes wide as he stared at something beyond them. "FILCH!" he yelled. "RUN!"

They didn't need to be told twice. Without even looking over his shoulder, Remus gave a final jerk under Sirius's arm and freed him, and the three of them took off down the steps. He turned left as they reached the hallway, heading back the direction that he knew Gryffindor tower to be. He was down three hallways, through two tapestries, and up two more flight of stairs before he realized there was no one behind him. He backtracked down one flight and looked around, but there were no moving shadows, no footsteps echoing. He looked around uneasily. Should he try to find them? He felt very exposed without the invisibility cloak, but it might be stupider to try to track down James and the cloak than to just try to sneak the rest of the way back. He debated for only a moment before turning around and heading back to the dormitory.

He worked his way back cautiously, moving slowly, poking his head around corners, and listening hard for the pitter-patter of feline footsteps. Fortunately, the entire trip back was silent, and he reached the portrait hole without incident.

Peter was already in the common room when he got there, red-faced and panting. "Oh good," he gasped. "You made it! Where are James and Sirius?"

"No clue," Remus said, collapsing into a chair and looking around the empty common room. "I figured they were with you."

The portrait hole opened again, and Sirius climbed in. He grinned at them, flicking his hair out of his eyes. "How long have you guys been back?"

"About four seconds," Remus said. "You know where James is?"

"Nope," Sirius said cheerfully. "We got separated about two hallways into the flight. No idea where he went." He hummed to himself as he sprawled out in front of the dying fire. "So how were your escapes?" he asked, as though asking about the weather or the latest homework assignment.

"I got lost," Peter said miserably. "Ran around the third floor twice before I figured out where I was. I heard noise at one point and hid in the trophy room, but I never saw who it was."

"Nothing exciting," Remus reported. "Just came back slowly. Didn't run into anyone or anything."

"Filch chased me for a while," Sirius said, sounding delighted. "James had the cloak, the little git, so of course he got away. I had to run all over the place. Finally found a stone gargoyle to hide behind, and gave him the slip."

The portrait hole opened again, and a grinning James entered. In his arms he carried a huge basket, full of every kind of food imaginable.

"I thought I would be rummaging through cabinets for leftovers," he said as he set the basket down, "but they wanted to make us an entire feast!"

"Who's 'they'?" Remus asked, peering into the basket.

"The house elves," he said. "Must've been hundreds of them."

Sirius made a face. "House elves?"

"Yeah," James said. "Friendly little things, aren't they?"

"Ours is the only one I've ever met," Sirius said, "and he's not particularly friendly. I'll have to go with you next time and meet the ones here. Oh, wait a minute!" he said, feigning a realization. "I was supposed to go with you _this_ time! But _you ran off with the cloak!_" He reached over and began punching James, and James threw his arms over his head, blocking the attack and laughing.

"Hey, I brought you all food, didn't I?" he argued. "Isn't that enough to earn your forgiveness?"

"That depends," Remus said. "Is there any meat in there?"

They sat in the dark common room for hours, eating and laughing, and considering different strategies for not getting caught when sneaking around Hogwarts at night. The horizon was turning pink by the time they crawled into their beds upstairs, the near-empty basket sitting beside the table with the water pitcher.

----------

_Author's Note: I'm _almost_ finished. Alas, tomorrow I go back into the real world where I have little free time, and no guarantee of internet access. As such, it may be Saturday before I can post the rest of the story. Hopefully not, but it is a possibility._


	12. Outside the Whomping Willow

It seemed that nothing cheered Sirius up as much as some good rule breaking. The more extreme the broken rule, the more boisterous he became.

"I'd lock that cloak up, if I were you," Remus muttered to James one evening. "Or it's going to disappear one of these days."

"What are you talking about?" Sirius asked, playing with the cloak. "I can't hear you when you're whispering like that."

"We were just considering the possibility that you're only friends with me so that you can borrow my clothes," James said, nodding at the cloak. In the previous two weeks, Sirius had taken off three times with the cloak, once with James, and twice alone.

"Hey, if not for me, we wouldn't know about that passage behind that statue," Sirius pointed out. Through a combination of luck and quick thinking, he had evaded Filch the previous night by disappearing into the same statue of the one-eyed witch that they had all hidden behind when trying to find the kitchens.

"That's true," James said. "I really want to know where it leads." He looked dangerously thoughtful.

"We could go-" Sirius began excitedly, and Remus sighed and shook his head. "Come on, Remus!" Sirius cried pleadingly. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

"My sense of adventure took me to detention last night," he said. "Which is why I have so much homework to do tonight." He had, against his better judgment, agreed when Sirius had suggested they see what happened if they added powdered bicorn horn to their Forgetfulness Potion. Sirius had found the resulting explosion to be very entertaining, but unfortunately, Professor Slughorn had not agreed.

"Fine," Sirius sighed. "This weekend?""

"Maybe," Remus said. Every time James or Sirius suggested an adventure, he felt torn. The adventures were almost always fun, but he was constantly worried that sooner or later, they would cross the line. James and Sirius were in detention constantly, and Peter almost as frequently, and the teachers no longer showed the slightest sign of surprise at their cavalier rule breaking. Remus, however, always showed up in detention feeling embarrassed and slightly guilty. Perhaps it was because he showed remorse that the teachers always seemed slightly amused when he was involved with the troublemaking. Still, the fact was that he was getting into trouble more and more, and he was sure that at some point, the teachers would reach their limits.

"Oh, lighten up, Moony," James said. "We only have a few weeks left to maraud around the castle.

"Well, when you put it that way..." Remus said, trying not to smile.

"Is that a yes?" Sirius asked excitedly. Remus hesitated only a moment, and nodded.

----------

"Stop trying to charm your food and eat it," Sirius said as Remus made a strawberry do somersaults around his plate.

"Sorry," Remus said, grabbing the berry and popping it into his mouth.

"You're going to do fine," James assured him. "Your fruits do gymnastics far better than anyone else's."

"I just wish I had more time to study," Remus said. "I'm going to be so tired!" He glanced up at the enchanted ceiling, where the sun was already sliding out of sight. He would have one day to recover from the full moon, but the first thing the following morning would be his charms exam.

"You studied more than the rest of the first years put together," Peter said, rolling his eyes.

"Yes, well, I would have gotten to study more if I hadn't spent half of last week in detention," Remus said pointedly. His three friends grinned at each other.

"Right," James said. "Sorry about that."

"Next time we have to split up and run, I'm taking the cloak," Remus said. James was the only one who had escaped getting caught during their attempt to explore the newfound passage. First Filch, and then McGonagall, had nearly gone mad trying to find him. They had known there was no way that Sirius, Remus and Peter were all out and about at night, and James was back in Gryffindor Tower, behaving himself. However, when their search turned up fruitless and McGonagall went to check Gryffindor Tower, James had been sitting in the common room, studying for final exams and appearing quite innocent.

"It's almost time to go, Moony," James said, glancing at the ceiling.

"Right," Remus said, cramming all the food on his plate into his mouth in only a few bites, then jumping up. As he was leaving, he saw an owl swoop into the hall, and heard Sirius's voice behind him say, "Not _another_ one!" He felt a little bit guilty, but he had to keep walking. He would check on Sirius tomorrow.

As he approaching the hospital wing, he heard a number of voices inside of it.

"It was all my fault," a girl was saying. "I was trying to fake her out, make her think I was going for the right goal and then go for the left, right? But then we collided..." the girl sounded like she was on the verge of tears. As Remus walked in, he saw the Ravenclaw Quidditch team all crowded around a cot where their keeper lay, knocked out cold. Madame Pomfrey was bustling around, gathering up potions.

Remus cleared his throat slightly, and he could tell by the look on her face that she had completely forgotten he was coming. She looked back and forth between him and the girl, clearly unsure of what she should do. Remus walked around the group of Ravenclaws.

"It's okay," he said quietly, so that the other students couldn't hear. "I can go by myself."

"Are you sure?" Madame Pomfrey frowned, her eyes still darting between him and the unconscious keeper. "Can you get in?"

"Sure," Remus said. "We learned how to levitate things last semester. Really, it's no problem."

Madame Pomfrey didn't look happy about it, but she agreed to let him go alone, insisting that she would come and check up on him as soon as she had the Quidditch player taken care of. Remus wasn't really sure what this meant, seeing as how she could hardly come into the shack once he was a wolf. As far as he could tell, the best she would be able to do would be to stand there and stare at the tree. He didn't say this though. He merely assured her that he would be fine, and set off down the familiar path. The sun was already slipping below the horizon as he approached the Whomping Willow, and he quickened his pace.

"_Locomotor mortis!_"

Remus hadn't even realized that there were other students out on the grounds until his legs locked together and he pitched forward into the ground. He felt a flare of panic as he looked at the sky. He really didn't have much time to get to the shack.

"Look who it is!" His heart sank when he heard the voice. "It's one of my wee cousin's little mudblood friends."

Somehow, he didn't think it would make much difference to point out to Bella that he was actually a half-blood, not a muggleborn.

"I've been hoping I would run into one of you," she said as she walked up with several other Slytherins. He recognized Avery, who James had beat up at the beginning of the year, and the pale first-year whose potions James and Sirius kept sabotaging during class. "You all weren't very nice to me the other day,"

"Listen," Remus said urgently, frantically trying to get his legs to break apart. "You've got to let me go!"

The Slytherins all laughed, and Bella smirked, a vicious smirk that was strikingly unlike Sirius's mischievous one. She held out her arms, which still bore the faint marks of Sirius's curse. "It hurt quite a bit, you know," she said conversationally. "It's a painful curse. Sirius screamed and screamed when we were younger. He hid in a cabinet for an hour after, crying." She laughed, and the other Slytherins snickered obligingly.

"I really don't care," Remus said. He couldn't tell if the tightness in his muscles was because he was panicking, or because the transformation was already beginning. His voice rose with alarm. "_Please_ let me go!"

"_Please _let me go!" she mimicked. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Remus felt an incredible repulsion, a shock that Sirius's cousin could be so vicious. The tiny wave of pity for his friend, however, was overwhelmed by the fear that not only was his secret about to be exposed, but there was a very good chance that someone was going to get hurt. He was in the middle of the Hogwarts grounds, and he seriously doubted that the leg-locker curse would continue to work on him once he was in wolf form.

"You know, he didn't do the curse _quite_ right," Bella said, grinning at Remus's fear. "He's only twelve, after all. I've had a few more years to perfect the skill. Shall I show you?"

"_Petrificus totalus!"_ Bella only showed the slightest sign of surprise before she went rigid and fell over. Remus turned to see his three friends, running as fast as they could towards them. At the same moment, he felt his muscles cramp in a way that he _knew_ had nothing to do with fear.

"_Go back!_" He yelled at them, gagging slightly on the words. The pain was incredible, nearly unbearable, just as it always was, but now there was terror along with it. _No, no, no! Not James! Not Sirius! Not Peter! _As he watched his three best friends race towards him, he had never been so afraid in his entire life.

The Slytherins had scattered. Even though they outnumbered James, Sirius, and Peter, something about the crazed, panicked way the three first-years were approaching, full speed and throwing hexes, apparently chased the Slytherins off.

He felt the searing pain of his bones shifting, and he knew that he was screaming. He felt the presence of a wolf push into his mind, and he tried to push back. Then he felt two pairs of hands pick him up. He could smell them. Ahead, he saw Peter moving a stick to push the knot on the tree. James and Sirius had him by his arms and legs, and were running in a full-out sprint to the tunnel's entrance. They pitched him as hard as they could, without any pretense of gentleness, into the tunnel.

"_Run!_" James screamed. As Remus sprinted along the tunnel, stumbling, half wolf, half boy, trying to reach the shack, the human part of his mind realized that James had probably been yelling at Sirius and Peter, and not at him.

----------

Not only did Remus not sleep, but he thought that in the six years since he had been bitten, he had never experienced such a violent and painful night. The fear and panic in the human part of him had carried over, creating a frightened, frantic wolf that tore through the shack, howling, destroying everything it could find, looking for the source of the fear. After he transformed back the next morning, he didn't move. He lay motionless on his stomach on the floor, looking at the slit of light coming through the crack that he and Sirius had once peeked through, watching a group of Slytherins running from the shack.

He closed his eyes. It was over. Forbidden trips into the Shrieking Shack, midnight missions to the kitchens, watching James and Sirius beat each other up in the dormitory... all of it was over.

It seemed painfully obvious now what a bad idea it had been to come to Hogwarts in the first place. He had heard rumors that Dumbledore was slightly mad, but he had never really believed any of them. Now he realized the Dumbledore must indeed be a complete lunatic to have turned a werewolf loose amidst his students. Remus Lupin, a very good student. Remus Lupin, friend of James and Sirius and Peter. But in the end, still just Remus Lupin, a werewolf.

He didn't cry, like he thought he would when the moment came. He just felt a kind of emptiness.

_One year. _The thought was bittersweet. All he had asked for was one year, and next week, the Hogwarts express would carry all of the students back to London. He would ask Dumbledore if he could stay until then, if he could ride the train back with his friends. That should be all right, he figured. Then he really would have had one year.

"Are you all right, Mister Lupin?"

Remus jumped at the voice calling from in the tunnel. He had not even heard Professor Dumbledore approach. He grabbed his robes and pulled them on quickly.

"You're usually already out by this time," Dumbledore said gently as he entered. He sat down in one of the mangled chairs, watching Remus. "Are you all right?"

Remus nodded, staring at the floor. "Yes sir," he whispered.

"I imagine you had quite a scare last night," Dumbledore said kindly.

"Yes sir."

"I spoke with the students responsible for, shall we say, 'detaining' you. Their stories seem to match up with your friends' accounts." Remus nodded. "None of them saw anything," Dumbledore concluded gently. "Most of them had run away, and Miss Black landed facing away from the events. She's quite confused by what she heard, but the point is just that – she is _confused_. She knows nothing."

Remus was confused. Why was Dumbledore telling him all of this? Did it matter if they knew?

"Clearly, next year, we shall have to make sure that a teacher is _always_ there to escort you." Dumbledore was frowning. "Like Madame Pomfrey, I would not have foreseen any problem with you taking yourself to the tree. It seems, however, that Poppy and I were both quite mistaken." Remus thought he saw a flash of anger in the Headmaster's usually twinkling eyes as he said those words.

"What?" Remus said stupidly. "Next year?"

"Yes, of course," Dumbledore said. "School ends next week, Remus! There are no more full moons this term."

"But... I can come back?" he couldn't believe what he was hearing. All of his thoughts about Dumbledore being a lunatic had completely flown out of his head.

"Of course," Dumbledore said. "If you still want to, that is. I can understand after an incident like last night if-"

"No, I want to!" Remus said hurriedly. "I want to come back! I love Hogwarts!"

Dumbledore beamed. "Excellent!" he said. "It's always good to hear students so enthusiastic about the pursuit of their magical education."

For a moment, Remus could have sworn that Dumbledore was holding in a laugh, but then the moment was over, and Dumbledore was standing. "Let's get you out of here and back into the comfort of Gryffindor Tower," he said, motioning Remus out first. "I daresay it is of the utmost importance to you that you be well rested for your exams tomorrow." He paused, then sounding pleasantly surprised with the thought, said, "You know, Mister Lupin, I believe you're one of the few students for whom that may actually be true."


	13. One Year

"I know that you will not find this funny at all," Sirius said, "but I almost wish you had killed her."

Remus _didn't _find it funny, and was slightly disturbed to see that Sirius didn't seem amused by the thought either.

"She didn't know," Remus pointed out. "I mean, she _was_ being horrid, but she couldn't have known _how_ bad what she was doing was."

"What _was_ she doing?" James asked. Like the rest of them, his voice was somewhat duller than usual.

Remus swallowed his bite of sandwich. "She was going to curse me. Said she could do the curse better than Sirius could."

"Wretched hag!" Sirius muttered furiously, but Remus shrugged.

"I really wasn't worried about that. I had bigger things to worry about," he pointed out. "I had no idea what the counter-curse is for the leg-locker curse, and I didn't think it was very likely that someone else would be out on the grounds to save me." He paused. "Hey... why _were_ you on the grounds? Why weren't you at dinner?"

Sirius let out a low snarl from across the room. Remus was sitting up, eating, but the other three were laying subdued on top of their beds.

"Sirius got another letter," Peter said. "He got mad, and stormed out."

"Just wanted to clear my head," Sirius explained darkly. "Or kick something."

"Anyway, we followed him, of course," James said. "And we heard you yelling, and saw what was going on."

"I have to admit," Sirius said, "that was scary, Moony."

Peter nodded. "It was kind of scary anyway, because we knew what was coming..."

"Except we _didn't _really know what was coming," James said. "When you started screaming..."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, each personally reliving the awful memory. Remus wasn't upset that they were afraid. Instead, for the first time, he felt like they actually got it. They understood how painful and scary it was, and yet, they still didn't look at him with fear. Their faces darkened at the memory, but when they looked at him, it was with the same expression that they had always looked at him.

Remus finished his sandwich and laid back on his own bed. "I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't shown up," he said for the third time that evening.

"I do," Sirius said. "You would have eaten my horrid cousin. Or at least bitten her."

"Yeah, that's a great idea," James said. "Give Bella some nice, poisonous teeth to go with that personality."

"Fair point," Sirius admitted. Even Remus chuckled, but the laugh instantly gave way to a groan of pain.

"Isn't there _anything_ Madame Pomfrey can do?" James asked, sitting up to look at Remus.

"She already did all she could," Remus said, grimacing. "They're not normal wounds, James. They don't respond to potions like normal wounds do."

Remus couldn't remember ever being quite this badly beaten up. He was covered in gashes and bruises, and every move hurt.

"You going to able to use your wand tomorrow?" Peter asked concernedly.

"I'm going to have to," Remus said, remembering the impending Charms exam, and letting out another groan that had nothing to do with physical pain.

----------

"Come on, Remus! Just one more time!" Sirius pleaded. "What have we got to lose?"

"That's true," James agreed. "The train leaves tomorrow morning. They can hardly put us in detention!"

"They've even already given the House Cup, so points don't matter!" Peter pointed out.

Remus had absolutely no counterarguments. His friends cheered as he finally nodded, and James grabbed the cloak out of the trunk.

The trip went quickly this time, since James actually knew where the kitchens were now. They had a hard time fitting everyone under the cloak along with the big basket of food that held leftovers from the end-of-term feasts, along with several of James's favorite desserts. The house-elves knew him by name now, and Remus thought it almost seemed as though they had expected him to come looking for snacks that night.

"Good call," Sirius said thoughtfully, taking a drink of pumpkin juice, "saving the passageway for next year." They were back in their dorm, sprawled out on the floor.

Remus choked on his food. "That's not exactly what I meant," he said.

"No, Sirius is right," James said. "This way we already have an adventure planned for the first week back at school!"

"I just said that it wasn't a good idea to go wandering down an unknown passageway only a few hours before the train left!" Remus cried. "I didn't say anything about next year!"

"Well, it all comes down to the same thing, doesn't it?" Peter said. "Snacks tonight, passageway next year."

"Precisely," Sirius said, nodding to Peter.

"Next year," Remus echoed his friends.

"Still planning on joining us, Moony?" James asked, flicking an apple core at him.

"Or are you still thinking that Hogwarts was really a one-year-only adventure for you?" Sirius grinned at the smile on Remus's face.

"I suppose I might come back for another year," Remus said, fighting back a yawn. They were determinedly ignoring the sky out the window, which was growing steadily lighter. "I'm starting to think that if I end up getting expelled, it'll have nothing to do with being a werewolf."

He saw his friends' eyes widen slightly. He might have thought he imagined it if Sirius and James hadn't exchanged the briefest of looks immediately after.

"What?" he asked, looking around at them.

"That's the first time you've _ever _actually said the word," Sirius said.

"Really?" Remus asked.

"Really," James said. "You usually try to skirt around it. Just like you don't say things like, "transform," "howl," or "yummy human prey."

Peter snorted orange juice up his nose, and Remus's mouth fell open. He couldn't decide whether to laugh or be horrified. Sirius pointed at him and began howling with laughter..

"Moony, I wish you could see your face right now!" he said, tears forming in his eyes.

Finally, Remus shook his head and let himself laugh with his friends.

"I can't believe it," James said smugly. "We finally got Moony to lighten up!"

It was on instinct that Remus threw the pillow at him. As soon as it left his fingertips, he realized that it had probably been a bad idea. Sure enough, a few seconds later three pillows were raining down on him, and with his arms over his head, he was scrounging around on the floor, trying to figure out where the fourth one was so he could defend himself.

----------

Remus, James, Sirius and Peter got a compartment near the front of the train. Remus was trying not to doze off, wanting to savor every last minute of his first year at Hogwarts. It was hard, because the four boys had never gotten around to going to bed. Remus felt a little guilty that morning in the Gryffindor common room when he saw that several of the other Gryffindors looked quite tired as well, and were glaring at them suspiciously.

"There's no way they can know it was us being noisy," Sirius had said unworriedly. "I'm sure loads of people stayed up late, with it being the last night and all."

If people were upset with them, it didn't last long. Several of their fellow students came in and out of the compartment to say hello to them and to wish them happy summers. Lily Evans came in with her friend from Slytherin, and Remus recognized him as one of the gang who had been with Bella. They scowled at each other, and Lily must have sensed something was going on, because she said a very hasty hello to Remus and hurried out, looking slightly confused as she waved goodbye to him.

"Looks like she's got a new boyfriend, Moony," Sirius said. "Tough luck, mate." Remus rolled his eyes.

"How long, do you figure?" James asked

He checked his watch. "We still have about another hour."

"No," James said. "How long before we get bored? I was thinking you should come in about two weeks. Three weeks max."

"Three weeks will be a bad time for me," Remus pointed out.

"Good point," James said. "Right after that then? I'll check with my parents and make sure it's all right, but I'm sure it won't be a problem. Maybe we can go see a Quidditch match!"

"You know what I'm looking forward to about second year?" Sirius asked. "James can finally bring his damn broom with him-" He didn't even finish the sentence before James was punching him.

Sirius's eyes darkened as they approached London. It seemed he had been trying not to think about the reality of going home until he absolutely had to, but now everyone was changing into their muggle clothing and buildings were flashing by the windows, and the inevitable was arriving.

"Hey," Remus whispered. "It's just three weeks, all right?" Sirius nodded.

"You'll write?" he asked, looking around at the three of them.

"Of course," James promised.

As they got off the train, James grabbed them and dragged them over to meet his parents. His father looked almost exactly like him, right down to the mischievous twinkle in his eyes, and his mother wrapped James in a hug while he struggled to get away.

"Stop it, Mum!" he muttered, wiping his cheek where she had kissed him. "People are staring!"

The only person who was staring, though, was Sirius, who had a strange, pained expression on his face. James glanced at Sirius out of the corner of his eye, and Remus suspected that he had pushed his mother away more for Sirius's sake than anything else.

But when James introduced Sirius, he also received a tight hug from Mrs. Potter, along with the declaration of, "So _you're_ Sirius! James has told us so much about you!" When she pulled away, Sirius looked slightly pink, but rather pleased.

As Remus scanned the platform for his own parents, he saw Sirius walking towards a rather surly looking couple and a young boy. They did not hug Sirius as he walked up, or even smile. As he trudged away behind them, Remus tried to catch his eye to smile encouragingly, but Sirius didn't look back.

Spotting his own family, Remus made his way through the crowd to them. As they headed back toward the gateway into the muggle world, he looked back at the scarlet train. He couldn't help grinning as he thought about how, come September, he would get to ride it again.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

_Author's Note: Well, there it is! All finished! Hope you all enjoyed it, and thanks for the reviews. :)_


	14. Moving Forward

_Author's Note: _

Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment. Maybe I'm unable to resist peer pressure. Maybe I'm just in denial about the series ending. Regardless the reason, I have decided (somewhat against my better judgment) to continue with the second year. I'm apparently not smart enough to do links, but you can find it by clicking on my name and going to my stories. It's called _Finding Home._

On another note, I will use this moment to beg for some help. Does anyone have any recommendations for some good Marauders stories out there? I'm having trouble tracking down anything of real quality. I prefer shorter, but I'll do longer stories if they're really worth the read. Preferably no slash, but if it's a _really_ excellent story, I'll give it a try. I mean _really _excellent Just warn me that there's slash first... it kind of traumatizes me when it catches me off guard.


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